Exoplanet atmospheres: a brand-new and rapidly expanding research field

TL;DR

This paper reviews the rapid growth of exoplanet atmospheric research, highlighting recent observational advances in characterizing their temperature, composition, and dynamics from space and ground-based telescopes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest findings in exoplanet atmospheres, emphasizing the transition from basic detection to detailed atmospheric characterization.

Findings

First measurements of exoplanet atmospheric properties

Advances in space-based atmospheric observations

Ground-based atmospheric data collection

Abstract

The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric characteristics, such as temperature, chemical composition, albedo, dynamics and structure. Here I will overview some of the main findings on exoplanet atmospheres until September 2010, first from space and just in the past two years also from the ground.