Exoplanetary atmosphere at high spectral resolution

Séminaire IPAG de David Ehrenreich (Genève), jeudi 16 janvier 2020 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Exoplanets are often found at short distances from their host stars. There, they represent unique laboratories to study highly-irradiated atmospheres with exotic chemistry and extreme climates. Finding out about the atmospheric composition and dynamical processes can in turn help us understanding the evolution of these objects. One such process is atmospheric escape, which is now surmised to have sculpted whole populations of planets. Enormous progress in detecting exoplanet mass-loss and characterising the underlying atmospheric layers have been accomplished over the past 5 years with high-resolution spectroscopy from space and from the ground. I will present recent results from Hubble, the CARMENES and ESPRESSO spectrographs which not only reveal atmospheres of giant exoplanets with unprecedented details but also bear hopes for the characterisation of smaller and more temperate planets.