event
Tuesday 06 Mar 2018: [Journal Club] Helium in the extended atmospheres of exoplanets
Jessica Spake - University of Exeter
4th Floor Interaction Area 11:15-11:45
Helium was predicted to be observable in exoplanet atmospheres by Seager & Sasselov (2000), but no such detections of the element have yet been published. The metastable (2^3S) state of helium forms in upper planetary atmospheres, and presents a new method to study extended and escaping exoplanet atmospheres that is complementary to the Lyman-alpha and H-alpha lines. I’ll present new results from Hubble exoplanet transmission spectroscopy that covers the 10830A line, and discuss how JWST/TESS will allow us to explore the extended atmospheres of both a large number of planets, and potentially super-Earth planets in the near future.
