Event Details

Observations of extrasolar planets over the past two decades have revealed an amazing diversity of systems, with a wide range in masses, compositions, temperatures, and orbital properties. These alien worlds provide an invaluable opportunity to study planetary atmospheres beyond the confines of our own solar system, and to improve our knowledge of the fundamental processes that shape these atmospheres. In my talk I will focus on measurements obtained with the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes that have allowed us to directly determine the temperatures, compositions, and global weather patterns of these planets. These observations serve to place exoplanets in a larger statistical context and to illuminate the major transitions that take place in planetary atmospheres across the mass and temperature spectrum.