National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS
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Observing exoplanetary atmospheres at high spectral resolution

The observational study of exoplanet atmospheres is a quickly-expanding field that has become the new frontier in exoplanet science. While the space-based Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer have led the field over the past 10 years, new ground-based opportunities have now emerged. In particular, high-resolution spectroscopy holds promise to detect and resolve planetary spectral lines, which opens the way to studies of atmospheric composition, pressure-temperature profile, presence of clouds/hazes, atmospheric winds and circulation, etc. Within this sub-project we will carry out the following activities:

  • Use data from the state-of-the-art spectrographs HARPS, HARPS-N, ESPRESSO, CRIRES, SPiROU, etc. to start a systematic multi-wavelength approach to exoplanet atmospheres at high spectral resolution. Detection of atomic and molecular species such as Na, K, H2O, CO, CO2, CH4 is feasible with this technique thanks to an optimized line contrast and co-addition of hundreds of individual molecular lines.
  • Participate in the development of new near-IR instrumentation optimized for the study of exoplanet atmospheres, both on the science and software sides, including the future E-ELT instruments.
  • Develop data reduction tools to push visible and near-IR instrumentation to its limits: correction of telluric contamination, calibration of detector effects, etc.
  • Create a database of reduced data products and laboratory data enabling in-depth analysis and cross-comparisons between different techniques and exoplanets, using the DACE platform.

 

30 years ago

30 years ago

Exactly 30 years ago, on October 6, 1995, the University of Geneva Observatory changed our view of the world with the announcement by two scientists, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, of the discovery of the first planet orbiting a star other than the Sun. However, it was in the 1970s that Geneva scientists began developing […]

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Witnessing the Formation of Moons

Witnessing the Formation of Moons

NASA’s Webb Telescope is investigating the formation of moons around a massive planet. A team at UZH is using the data to study the chemical composition of a disk that is believed to be the basis for the formation of new moons. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct measurements of the […]

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Artificial intelligence drives the discovery of new exoplanets

Artificial intelligence drives the discovery of new exoplanets

Researchers from the University of Bern have developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model capable of predicting the architecture of planetary systems and subsequently inferring the presence of yet-to-be-discovered planets. They use the so-called Transformer architecture which is the basis of the Large Language Models powering tools like the recently launched Swiss model Apertus or chatbots […]

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