Spatially-resolving exoplanet atmospheres

Funder	Science and Technology Facilities Council
Recipient Organization	University of Warwick
Country	United Kingdom
Start Date	Sep 30, 2024
End Date	Mar 30, 2028
Duration	1,277 days
Number of Grantees	2
Roles	Student; Supervisor
Data Source	UKRI Gateway to Research
Grant ID	`2926052`

Grant Description

The project combines transmission spectroscopy observations of transiting exoplanets from ground-based and space-based telescopes to measure the composition of giant planet atmospheres.

In particular, the aim is to detect and exploit spatial inhomogeneities in the planetary atmosphere in order to study global circulation and cloud formation in 2D and maybe 3D.

Observational data will be both high and low spectral resolution, and ground-based data will come primarily from ESO telescopes. We are likely also to include data from JWST and maybe HST.

We will aim to exploit a code called TERMINATOR developed by a fellow at Warwick, as well as other data reduction and modelling codes.