Exoplanets II: how to measure an exoplanet's atmosphere

Today's topic -- how can astronomers detect the presence of, and composition of, an exoplanet's atmosphere? -- is a complex one. The task requires very large telescopes, sophisticated spectrographs, and lots of observing time. We can only look at a few aspects of the issue here today.

We'll pick out a few sections of the material in a lecture I gave a few years ago:

• Transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets

This was part of a course I taught at the University of Tokyo. You can read all the materials if you're interested:

• Exoplanets in 2024

For more information

• These figures may help to illustrate some of the ideas mentioned in today's exercise
  • measurements of a transit with 1-second exposures
  • measurements of a transit with 100-second exposures
  • measurements of a transit with 3600-second exposures
• Notes from a course on exoplanets I taught in 2016 may be slightly out of date, but contain some useful information and pointers.
• Notes from a more recent course on exoplanets I taught in 2024 is more up to date.
• NASA's Exoplanet Archive is one of the best places for information about all the known exoplanets.

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.