The Pursuit of A Meticulous Chemical Survey of Exoplanets

<p>Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of bulk parameters. However, the essential nature of these planets remains largely mysterious. We have poor observational insights into how the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or how the host star drives the processes controlling the planet's birth and evolution.</p> <p>Current facilities have begun the reconnaissance of exoplanetary atmospheres. HST has been utilised to conduct observations of tens of worlds. These data have allowed for the first “population” studies of exoplanet atmospheres to be undertaken. WFC3 G141, which provides sensitivity to water in these atmospheres, has been central to these efforts and has characterised planets in both transmission and emission.</p> <p>I will discuss the latest outcomes of homogenous population studies with HST WFC3, highlighting the key results and findings in the search for chemical trends. Furthermore, the limitations of current approaches will be presented, including data quality, the potential biases in the current analysis methods, and lack of rigorous population-level target selection.</p> <p>In the next few years, the quality and quantity of space-based data will drastically increase thanks to JWST, Twinkle and Ariel. These new facilities will probe the atmospheres of hundreds of planets in unprecedented detail, triggering a substantial shift in our understanding of planetary science. However, to maximise the science yield of these missions we must learn lessons from the currently available datasets.</p> <p>I will discuss how we can use the results and, at times, failings of these previous endeavours to develop clear strategies for target selection. Additionally, I will present projects which seek to understand the key capabilities and niches of these observatories, to help develop strategies to exploit the synergies and complementarities between different facilities in an attempt to construct a meticulous chemical survey of exoplanet atmospheres.</p>