Related papers: Feasibility study on retrieving exoplanetary cloud…
Terrestrial exoplanets in habitable zones are ubiquitous. It is, however, unknown which have Earth-like or Venus-like climates. Distinguishing different planet-types is crucial for determining whether a planet could be habitable. We…
Characterization of the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets relies on accurate measurements of the extent of the optically thick area of the planet at multiple wavelengths with a precision $\lesssim$100 parts per million (ppm).…
High-contrast imaging in the next decade aims to image exoplanets at smaller angular separations and deeper contrasts than ever before. A problem that has recently garnered attention for telescopes equipped with high-contrast coronagraphs…
With a new generation of observatories coming online this decade, the process of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres will need to be reinvented. Currently mostly on the instrumental side, characterization bottlenecks will soon stand by the…
Direct imaging of exo-Earths and search for life is one of the most exciting and challenging objectives for future space observatories. Segmented apertures in space will be required to reach the needed large diameters beyond the…
We present results of numerical simulations of the flux (irradiance), F, and the degree of polarization (i.e. the ratio of polarized to total flux), P, of light that is reflected by Earth-like extrasolar planets orbiting solar-type stars,…
Atmospheric temperatures are to be estimated from thermal emission spectra of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting M-stars as observed by current and future planned missions. To this end, a line-by-line radiative transfer code is used to generate…
Over the past decade, exoplanet atmospheric characterization has became what some might call the cosmology of astronomy. In an attempt to extract and understand the weak planetary signals (a few percent down to a few tens of ppm times that…
Transmission spectroscopy is still the preferred characterization technique for exoplanet atmospheres, although it presents unique challenges that translate into characterization bottlenecks when robust mitigation strategies are missing.…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
Rings around giant exoplanets (hereafter 'exorings') are still a missing planetary phenomenon among the vast number of discovered planets. Despite the fact there exist a large number of methods for identifying and characterizing these…
Exoplanet atmospheric retrieval is a computational technique widely used to infer properties of planetary atmospheres from remote spectroscopic observations. Retrieval codes typically employ Bayesian sampling algorithms or machine learning…
Polarimetric measurements, especially if extended at high energy, are expected to provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying the acceleration of relativistic particles in jets. In a previous work we have shown that the…
Spectral retrieval has long been a powerful tool for interpreting planetary remote sensing observations. Flexible, parameterised, agnostic models are coupled with inversion algorithms in order to infer atmospheric properties directly from…
SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems) is a five-year M-class mission proposed to ESA Cosmic Vision. Its purpose is to image and characterize long-period extrasolar planets and circumstellar disks…
Properties of planetary atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres are difficult to measure from Earth. Radio occultations are a common method for measuring these properties, but they traditionally rely on radio transmissions from a…
Over the next year, a new era of observations of compact objects in X-ray polarization will commence. Among the key targets for the upcoming Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission, will be the magnetars 4U 0142+61 and 1RXS…
Spectropolarimetry from the near IR to the far UV of light scattered by dust provides a valuable diagnostic of the dust composition, grain size distribution and spatial distribution. To facilitate the use of this diagnostic, we present…
We determine the observability in transmission of inhomogeneous cloud cover on the limbs of hot Jupiters through post processing a general circulation model to include cloud distributions computed using a cloud microphysics model. We find…
The evolution of space technology in recent years, fueled by advancements in computing such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), has profoundly transformed our capacity to explore the cosmos. Missions like the James…