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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20120625T123000
DTEND;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20120625T133000
UID:iactalks-400
X-WR-CALNAME: IAC Talks: Open Astronomy Seminars
X-ORIGINAL-URL: /iactalks/Talks/view/400
CREATED:2012-06-25T12:30:00+01:00
X-WR-CALDESC: IAC Talks upcomming talks
SUMMARY:Spectra of Transiting Extrasolar Planets: Past, Present, and Future
  
DESCRIPTION:Spectra of Transiting Extrasolar Planets: Past, Present, and Fu
 ture \nDr. Peter McCullough\n\nWe review observations of a representative 
 set of extrasolar planets that transit their stars, concentrating on those
  discovered and characterized by the XO Project. Spectra of these planets 
 in transit and in eclipse have made significant contributions to our under
 standing of hot gas giant exoplanets, including 1) evidence for planet-pla
 net scattering to transfer the planets from where they are formed to where
  we observe them, 2) hot stratospheres of these exoplanets, and two possib
 le mechanisms to maintain them, and 3) water vapor detected in the near-IR
  spectrum of the exoplanet XO-1b in transit. For the latter case, we compa
 re near-IR spectra obtained with two HST instruments: NICMOS and WFC3 with
  its new spatial scanning technique. We then present the spectrum of the s
 uper-Earth exoplanet GJ 1214b from the visible to the infrared, and focus 
 on the definitive results obtained with HST WFC3 that show a featureless n
 ear-IR spectrum, indicative of either a large mean molecular weight in the
  planet's atmosphere, or obscuring haze (Berta et al. 2012).  We identify 
 similar observations that are being made with HST now, and will be made wi
 th JWST, and other telescopes in the future.  We conclude by summarizing t
 he Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, which will discover the ne
 arest, transiting rocky exoplanets, those most interesting and most suitab
 le for follow-up characterization of the sort we have presented.
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