Understanding their atmospheres is the next step in understanding exoplanets. Calculating a planet's mass, density, and other physical characteristics is fairly easy. Accurately describing their atmospheres is more difficult.
Astronomers have had some success studying exoplanet atmospheres, and the ARIEL mission will help a lot. There are thousands of confirmed exoplanets with many more to come, and the Webb has many demands on its time.
Smaller, ground-based telescopes can be used to understand exoplanet atmospheres.
We learn from light. The light from the star is slightly dimmer when an exoplanet is present. As the planet tugs on its star, it causes a minute change in the starlight. These fluctuations in the light are measured with telescopes and instruments.
Similar levels of technological power and sophistication are required to study exoplanet atmospheres. Astronomers can determine the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet by looking at the starlight as it passes through the planet's atmosphere. They do this with instruments.
The world's largest observatories have high-resolution telescopes. The Very Large Telescope ( VLT) has an ESPRESSO spectrograph. There are many smaller telescopes than the VLT. The authors of a new paper think that some of the smaller telescopes could be used to study exoplanet atmospheres.
![The four Unit Telescopes that make up the ESO's Very Large Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory> Image: By ESO/H.H.Heyer [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1200px-Aerial_View_of_the_VLTI_with_Tunnels_Superimposed-1024x659.jpg)
The title of the paper is "exoplanet atmospheres at high resolution through a modest-sized telescope." The lead author is a student at the Technical University of Denmark. The paper will be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
FIES stands for the Echelle Spectrograph. It is an Echelle instrument like the one on the VLT. The Nordic Optical Telescope has a 2.56-metre telescope at La Palma in the Canary Islands.
Mascara-2b is a hot Jupiter that is in the vicinity of an A-type star. Astronomers discovered it. Astronomers discovered water and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere.
The other star, Kelt-9b, was discovered in the study. It is also a hot Jupiter and A-type star.
In this work, we seek to demonstrate the ability of spectrographs at 2-m class telescopes to characterize exoplanetary atmospheres at high resolution. Astronomers have studied both of the hot Jupiters with more powerful telescopes, giving them something to compare their results to. Hot Jupiters are large and close to their stars, making it easier to see the light as it passes through the atmosphere.
The goal is to use FIES to replicate the detection of atmospheric neutral and ionized.
Two transits of MASCARA-2b and one of Kelt-9b were observed by the team. Fe II was detected in the atmospheres of both planets. They detected Fe I in both atmospheres, but they aren't sure if that signal stands out from the noise.
The authors are confident that smaller ground-based telescopes can study exoplanet atmospheres.
They write in their conclusion that the results demonstrate the feasibility of studying atmospheres at highspectral resolution with FIES. FIES is located in a separate building from the NOT.
FIES has been upgraded since these observations were taken. The new mirror coating has made FIES 600% more efficient, according to the authors.
The improvements bode well for the study of exoplanet atmospheres. Smaller telescopes don't always grab the headlines or capture gorgeous images that are worthy of a front page. They're used by working astronomer every day in concert with one another.
The proof-of-concept study opens the door for characterization of exoplanet atmospheres with other modest-size telescopes.
Smaller telescopes will have more and more targets as NASA finds more and more exoplanets and hot Jupiters. The authors think the smaller scope can be used in exoplanet science.
As NASA's TESS mission keeps delivering targets, the availability of multiple spectrographs will be crucial to exploring the composition and dynamics.
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