Related papers: Terrestrial Exoplanet Light Curves
From life on other planets to virtual classrooms this thesis spans a wide array of research topics all based on how we see other worlds. Our understanding of everything from moon phases, the planets in our Solar System, and exoplanet…
At optical wavelengths, Titan's brightness for large Sun-Titan-observer phase angles significantly exceeds its dayside brightness. The brightening that occurs near back-illumination is due to moderately large haze particles in the moon's…
A planet's spectrum is dynamic and only represents a time-dependent snapshot of its properties. Changing atmospheric conditions due to climate and weather patterns, particularly variation in cloud cover, can significantly affect the…
Are there other planetary systems in our Universe? Indirect evidence has been found for planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy: the gravity of orbiting planets makes the star wobble, and the resulting periodic Doppler shifts have been…
It is the most appropriate time to characterize the Earth-like exoplanets in order to detect biosignature beyond the Earth because such exoplanets will be the prime targets of big-budget missions like JWST, Roman Space Telescope, HabEx,…
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…
Orbital phase-dependent variations in thermal emission and reflected stellar energy spectra can provide meaningful constraints on the climate states of terrestrial extrasolar planets orbiting M dwarf stars. Spatial distributions of water…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
Clouds also form in atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars than our Sun, in so-called extrasolar planets or exoplanets. Exoplanet atmospheres can be chemically extremely rich. Exoplanet clouds are therefor made of a mix of materials…
The forthcoming space missions, able to detect Earth-like planets by the transit method, will a fortiori also be able to detect the transit of artificial planet-size objects. Multiple artificial objects would produce lightcurves easily…
The discovery of over 200 extrasolar planets with the radial velocity (RV) technique has revealed that many giant planets have large eccentricities, in striking contrast with most of the planets in the solar system and prior theories of…
Glint, the specular reflection of sunlight off Earth's oceans, may reveal the presence of oceans on an extrasolar planet. As an Earth-like planet nears crescent phases, the size of the ocean glint spot increases relative to the fraction of…
Earthshine is sunlight that has been reflected from the dayside Earth onto the dark side of the Moon and back again to Earth. In recent times, there has been renewed interest in ground-based visible and near-infrared measurements of…
Mapping exoplanets across phases and during secondary eclipse is a powerful technique for characterizing Hot Jupiters in emission. Since these planets are expected to rotate about axes normal to their orbital planes, with rotation periods…
Kepler has detected numerous exoplanet transits by precise measurements of stellar light in a single visible-wavelength band. In addition to detection, the precise photometry provides phase curves of exoplanets, which can be used to study…
The dust tails of comets similar to Hale-Bopp can scatter as much optical light as does the Earth. Space-based observatories such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder or Darwin that will detect extra-solar terrestrial planets also will be able…
It is known that the shape of a planet (oblateness, rings, etc.) slightly modifies the shape of the transit light curve. The forthcoming space missions (Corot, Kepler), able to detect the transit of Earth-like planets, could a fortiori also…
The search for extrasolar Earth-like planets is underway. Over 100 extrasolar giant planets are known to orbit nearby sun-like stars, including several in multiple-planet systems. These planetary systems are stepping stones for the search…
Atmospheric spectroscopy provides a window into the properties of exoplanets. However, the physical interpretation of retrieved data and its implications for the internal properties of exoplanets remains nebulous. This letter addresses…
The reflected light signal from a planet throughout its orbit is a powerful probe of a planet's atmospheric properties. There are a number of planets that are amenable to reflected light phase curve studies with present and future…