Study of atmospheres in the solar system, from stellar occultation or planetary transit

TL;DR

This paper explores how stellar occultations and transits can be used to analyze planetary atmospheres by modeling refraction effects to determine key atmospheric parameters.

Contribution

It derives fundamental equations for ray propagation in planetary atmospheres and demonstrates their use in extracting atmospheric properties from observational data.

Findings

Derived equations for ray propagation in atmospheres

Showed how to determine density, pressure, and temperature profiles

Explained how to detect gravity waves and winds

Abstract

Stellar occultations and transits occur when a planetary body passes in front of a star (including our Sun). For objects with an atmosphere, refraction plays an essential role to explain the drops of flux and the aureoles observed during these events. This can be used to derived key parameters of the atmospheres, such as their density, pressure and temperature profiles, as well as the presence of atmospheric gravity waves and zonal winds. Here we derive from basic principles the equations that rule the ray propagation in planetary atmospheres, and we show how they can be used to derive the physical parameters of these atmospheres.