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A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
With the increasing number of directly imaged giant exoplanets the current atmosphere models are often not capable of fully explaining the spectra and luminosity of the sources. A particularly challenging component of the atmosphere models…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
The era of exoplanet characterization is upon us. For a subset of exoplanets -- the transiting planets -- physical properties can be measured, including mass, radius, and atmosphere characteristics. Indeed, measuring the atmospheres of a…
The conventional observables to identify a habitable or inhabited environment in exoplanets, such as an ocean glint or abundant atmospheric O$_2$, will be challenging to detect with present or upcoming observatories. Here we suggest a new…
The past twenty years have revealed the diversity of planets that exist in the Universe. It turned out that most of exoplanets are different from the planets of our Solar System and thus, everything about them needs to be explored. Thanks…
A number of transiting, potentially habitable Earth-sized exoplanets have recently been detected around several nearby M dwarf stars. These worlds represent important targets for atmospheric characterization for the upcoming NASA James Webb…
Understanding planet formation requires robust population studies, which are designed to reveal trends in planet properties. In this work, we aim to determine if different methods for selecting populations of exoplanets for atmospheric…
The spectroscopic characterization of terrestrial exoplanets will be made possible for the first time with JWST. One challenge to characterizing such planets is that it is not known a priori whether they possess optically thick atmospheres…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is predicted to make great advances in the field of exoplanet atmospheres. Its 25 m2 mirror means that it can reach unprecedented levels of precision in observations of transit spectra, and can thus…
Today, there exists a wide variety of algorithms dedicated to high-contrast imaging, especially for the detection and characterisation of exoplanet signals. These algorithms are tailored to address the very high contrast between the…
The TRAPPIST-1 system is home to at least seven terrestrial planets and is a target of interest for future James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations. Additionally, these planets will be of interest to future missions making…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be atinfrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits is expected to be a major source of information on the atmospheres of small (approximately Earth-sized) exoplanets in the next two decades. This technique, however, is intrinsically…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…
Over the past three decades, exoplanet research has delivered an extensive census of planets spanning a wide range of masses, sizes, and orbital configurations. Despite this progress, the physical interpretation of these populations remains…
Most models used to predict or fit exoplanet transmission spectra do not include all the effects of atmospheric refraction. Namely, the angular size of the star with respect to the planet can limit the lowest altitude, or highest density…
Transiting exoplanets provide detailed access to their atmospheres, as the planet's signal can be effectively separated from that of its host star. For transiting exoplanets three fundamental atmospheric measurements are possible:…
With TESS and ground-based surveys searching for rocky exoplanets around cooler, nearby stars, the number of Earth-sized exoplanets that are well-suited for atmospheric follow-up studies will increase significantly. For atmospheric…
To ensure robust constraints are placed on exoplanet atmospheric transmission spectra, future observations need to obtain high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) measurements assuming smaller amplitude molecular signatures than those of clear…