Exoplanetary atmospheres: key insights, challenges, and prospects

N Madhusudhan - Annual Review of Astronomy and …, 2019 - annualreviews.org
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 …

Exoplanet biosignatures: understanding oxygen as a biosignature in the context of its environment

VS Meadows, CT Reinhard, GN Arney… - Astrobiology, 2018 - liebertpub.com
We describe how environmental context can help determine whether oxygen (O2) detected
in extrasolar planetary observations is more likely to have a biological source. Here we …

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS

AD Feinstein, M Radica, L Welbanks, CA Murray… - Nature, 2023 - nature.com
The Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b has been the subject of extensive efforts to
determine its atmospheric properties using transmission spectroscopy,,–. However, these …

A high internal heat flux and large core in a warm Neptune exoplanet

L Welbanks, TJ Bell, TG Beatty, MR Line, K Ohno… - Nature, 2024 - nature.com
Interactions between exoplanetary atmospheres and internal properties have long been
proposed to be drivers of the inflation mechanisms of gaseous planets and apparent …

Methane throughout the atmosphere of the warm exoplanet WASP-80b

TJ Bell, L Welbanks, E Schlawin, MR Line, JJ Fortney… - Nature, 2023 - nature.com
The abundances of main carbon-and oxygen-bearing gases in the atmospheres of giant
exoplanets provide insights into atmospheric chemistry and planet formation processes …

Interpreting the atmospheric composition of exoplanets: sensitivity to planet formation assumptions

P Mollière, T Molyarova, B Bitsch… - The Astrophysical …, 2022 - iopscience.iop.org
Constraining planet formation based on the atmospheric composition of exoplanets is a
fundamental goal of the exoplanet community. Existing studies commonly try to constrain …

Sulfur dioxide in the mid-infrared transmission spectrum of WASP-39b

D Powell, AD Feinstein, EKH Lee, M Zhang, SM Tsai… - Nature, 2024 - nature.com
The recent inference of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the atmosphere of the hot (approximately
1,100 K), Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b from near-infrared JWST observations …

petitRADTRANS-A Python radiative transfer package for exoplanet characterization and retrieval

P Mollière, JP Wardenier, R Van Boekel… - Astronomy & …, 2019 - aanda.org
We present the easy-to-use, publicly available, Python package petitRADTRANS, built for
the spectral characterization of exoplanet atmospheres. The code is fast, accurate, and …

Evidence for the volatile-rich composition of a 1.5-Earth-radius planet

C Piaulet, B Benneke, JM Almenara, D Dragomir… - Nature …, 2023 - nature.com
The population of planets smaller than approximately 1.7 Earth radii (R⊕) is widely
interpreted as consisting of rocky worlds, generally referred to as super-Earths. This picture …

Awesome SOSS: transmission spectroscopy of WASP-96b with NIRISS/SOSS

M Radica, L Welbanks, N Espinoza… - Monthly Notices of …, 2023 - academic.oup.com
The future is now–after its long-awaited launch in 2021 December, JWST began science
operations in 2022 July and is already revolutionizing exoplanet astronomy. The Early …