Related papers: Disk-averaged Spectra & light-curves of Earth
We present new models for illuminated accretion disks, their structure and reprocessed emission. We consider the effects of incident X-rays on the surface of an accretion disk by solving simultaneously the equations of radiative transfer,…
This work describes the context and approach for the detection of spectroscopic signatures from planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars. By understanding the limitations of current observatories, future telescopes can be understood,…
With the large amounts of spectroscopic data available today and the very large surveys to come (e.g. Gaia), the need for automatic data analysis software is unquestionable. We thus developed an automatic spectra analysis program for the…
Atmospheric retrievals are widely used to constrain exoplanet properties from observed spectra. We investigate how the common nonphysical retrieval assumptions of vertically constant molecule abundances and cloud-free atmospheres affect our…
The surfaces of rotating stars serve as a window into their interiors, magnetic dynamos, and are important in other areas including exoplanet discovery and atmospheric characterization. While indirect techniques such as photometry and…
The next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes will be able to observe rocky Earth-like planets in the near future, transiting their host star. We explore how the transmission spectrum of Earth changed through its geological…
Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed…
We present a set of 6-12 micron ISOPHOT-S spectra of the general interstellar medium of the Milky Way. This part of the spectrum is dominated by a series of strong, wide emission features commonly called the Unidentified Infrared Bands. The…
One of the most prolific methods of studying exoplanet atmospheres is transmission spectroscopy, which measures the difference between the depth of an exoplanet's transit signal at various wavelengths and attempts to correlate the depth…
Over the past two decades, enormous advances in the detection of exoplanets have taken place. Currently, we have discovered hundreds of earth-sized planets, several of them within the habitable zone of their star. In the coming years, the…
The dust-HI correlation is used to characterize the emission properties of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium. We cross-correlate sky maps from Planck, WMAP, and DIRBE, at 17 frequencies from 23 to 3000 GHz, with the Parkes survey of…
High-resolution Doppler-resolved spectroscopy has opened up a new window into the atmospheres of both transiting and non-transiting exoplanets. Here, we present VLT/UVES observations of a transit of WASP-121b, an 'ultra-hot' Jupiter…
Ground-based transit observations are affected by both telluric absorption and instrumental systematics. To account for these effects, a better understanding of the impact of different data analyses is needed to improve the accuracy of the…
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…
As photosynthesis on Earth produces the primary signatures of life that can be detected astronomically at the global scale, a strong focus of the search for extrasolar life will be photosynthesis, particularly photosynthesis that has…
Atmospheres of transiting extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) such as HD 209458 b must impose features on the spectra of their parent stars during transits; these features contain information about the physical conditions and chemical…
A primary goal of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is to detect and measure the abundance of biosignature molecules, such as water (H2O) and oxygen (O2), in the atmosphere of Earth analogs. This is expected to require deep…
Spectroscopic measurements at top of atmosphere are uniquely capable of attributing changes in Earth's outgoing infrared radiation field to specific greenhouse gasses. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) placed in orbit in 2002 has…
Exoplanet transmission spectra, which measure the absorption of light passing through a planet's atmosphere during transit, are most often assessed globally, resulting in a single spectrum per planetary atmosphere. However, the inherent…
Unmixing the disk-integrated spectra of exoplanets provides hints about heterogeneous surfaces that we cannot directly resolve in the foreseeable future. It is particularly important for terrestrial planets with diverse surface compositions…