From Starlight to Spectra: Discovering Exoplanet Atmospheres through Advanced Techniques

Hello everyone,

Today I want to talk about the atmospheres of exoplanets. As for the importance of why we need to research about the atmosphere, The atmosphere shape and mold a planet, it determines the future of a planet and it's ability to nurturing and maintaining life forms, or creating a habitable atmosphere. Not only does studying about atmosphere helps us to hold or inhabit a planet, but also lets us have more source of minerals and rare metals. In this post, we will explore the structure , composition of atmospheres and various techniques that are used to study the atmosphere of exoplanets.

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There are two key aspects to understand the atmosphere, the study of composition and structure of the atmosphere can make us understand the possibility of an exoplanet to hold life and just to understand what kind of a planet that is.

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• composition: discovering the diverse presence of various gases that makes up the atmosphere such as carbon di oxide, water vapour, hydrogen, helium etc, by discovering what kinds of gases are present in the atmosphere, we can make a good assumptions to planet's formation and its evolution.

• structure: discovering the layers of atmosphere, its energy transportation, presence of clouds and aerosols, the influence of factors such as pressure, temperature etc.

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There are various techniques handles by scientists to study about the atmospheres of various exoplanets. Studying about atmospheres need innovative approaches and advanced technologies, and its been one of the greatest challenges for scientists. I'll try to write about some of the techniques used by scientists.

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• Transmission spectroscopy: In this technique, astronomers observe how the exoplanet they are researching filters the starlight during an eclipse, this is similar to the transit method we talked about in the last post, when the planet passed infron of distant or parent star, the light from that star passes through the atmosphere of planet and astronomers observe how the atmosphere filters this light during this event. This method helps in identifying the composition of atmosphere of the exoplanet.

• Emission spectroscopy: In this technique, astronomers captures and analyze the thermal radiation emitted by the exoplanet, by creating a thermal profile for an exoplanet, scientists can identify the composition of the atmosphere and presence of specific molecules.

• Secondary Eclipse Measurements: In this technique, astronomers look for the reduction of brightness of the exoplanet when the planets moves behind its host star, by calculating this, scientists can identify the composition and properties of the atmosphere.

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image of exoplanets taken by james webb telescope

• Advancement in technologies: Advancement in technologies have made easier to research the atmosphere of exoplanets. For example, the james webb telescope has found presence of water vapour in a rocky planet which is 26 light years away just 5 days ago, it also found atmospheric reactions on several exoplanets and much more.

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Not only james webb telescope, there are other technological advancements have been made, so studying the atmosphere of exoplanets is much easier than before and the scientists are making great progress in discovering a planet thats identical to earth, but even if we find a planet that can hold life forms, we don't have any sophisticated technology to go there tho.but well get there eventually.

Thank you for supporting me, I hope you learned something new.

Thank you once again and have a nice day!