Related papers: The curse of clouds
Using a general circulation model (GCM), we investigate trends in simulated hot Jupiter atmospheres for a range of irradiation temperatures (1,500 - 4,000 K), surface gravities (10 and 40 m s-2), and cloud conditions. Our models include…
Royal Society Discussion Meeting (2013) `Characterizing exoplanets'. Of the 900+ confirmed exoplanets discovered since 1995 for which we have constraints on their mass (i.e., not including Kepler candidates), 75% have masses larger than…
Population studies of exoplanets are key to unlocking their statistical properties. So far the inferred properties have been mostly limited to planetary, orbital and stellar parameters extracted from, e.g., Kepler, radial velocity, and GAIA…
The nature of aerosols in hot exoplanet atmospheres is one of the primary vexing questions facing the exoplanet field. The complex chemistry, multiple formation pathways, and lack of easily identifiable spectral features associated with…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be at infrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
The hot Jupiter HD 189733b is probably the best studied of the known extrasolar planets, with published transit and eclipse spectra covering the near UV to mid-IR range. Recent work on the transmission spectrum has shown clear evidence for…
Previous generation of instruments have the opportunity to discover thousands of extra-solar planets and more will come with the current and future planet-search missions. In order to go one step further in the characterization of…
Hot Jupiters are new laboratories for the physics of giant planet atmospheres. Subject to unusual forcing conditions, the circulation regime on these planets may be unlike anything known in the Solar System. Characterizing the atmospheric…
Ultra-hot Jupiters, an extreme class of planets not found in our solar system, provide a unique window into atmospheric processes. The extreme temperature contrasts between their day- and night-sides pose a fundamental climate puzzle: how…
Ultra-hot Jupiters are the hottest exoplanets discovered so far. Observations begin to provide insight into the composition of their extended atmospheres and their chemical day/night asymmetries. Both are strongly affected by cloud…
The last few years has seen a dramatic increase in the number of exoplanets known and in the range of methods for characterising their atmospheric properties. At the same time, new discoveries of increasingly cooler brown dwarfs have pushed…
We present new visible and infrared observations of the hot Jupiter Kepler-7b to determine its atmospheric properties. Our analysis allows us to 1) refine Kepler-7b's relatively large geometric albedo of Ag=0.35+-0.02, 2) place upper limits…
Turbulent vertical transport driven by double-diffusive shear instabilities is identified as likely important in hot exoplanet atmospheres. In hot Jupiter atmospheres, the resulting vertical mixing appears sufficient to alleviate the…
Exoplanetary science is on the verge of an unprecedented revolution. The thousands of exoplanets discovered over the past decade have most recently been supplemented by discoveries of potentially habitable planets around nearby low-mass…
We are on the verge of characterizing the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Due to their large planet-to-star radius ratios and higher frequency of transits, terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M…
Today, we know ~4330 exoplanets orbiting their host stars in ~3200 planetary systems. The diversity of these exoplanets is large, and none of the known exoplanets is a twin to any of the solar system planets, nor is any of the known…
Astronomical surveys have identified numerous exoplanets with bulk compositions that are unlike the planets of the Solar System, including rocky super-Earths and gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes. Observing the atmospheres of these objects…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
The observation of gaseous giant planets is of high scientific interest. Although they have been the targets of several spacecraft missions, there still remains a need for continuous ground-based observations. As their atmospheres present…
The hot Jupiter HD189733b is the most extensively observed exoplanet. Its atmosphere has been detected and characterised in transmission and eclipse spectroscopy, and its phase curve measured at several wavelengths. This paper brings…