Exploring the Diversity of Exoplanets and Planetary Atmospheres

Currently, Earth is the only planet that we know has life. However, in the last 30 years we have discovered more than 5000 exoplanets across different types of stars and the variety of these exoplanets that we have discovered is astonishing. There are hot Jupiters, warm Neptune, super-Earth, Earth like planets etc. In our research group we focus on the characterization of these far away worlds using observations from various ground and space based telescopes, and interpreting them using planetary atmosphere models.

We develop detailed planetary atmosphere models in our group combining radiative transfer, chemistry, opacities, interior outgassing and many more processes as shown in the figure (left). We also perform retrievals by coupling these models to Bayesian samplers and even machine learning. These models are utilized not just for interpreting exoplanet observations, but also for solar system planets and even Earth. Using these models we aim to understand what is the diversity of planetary atmospheres out there in the Universe and what are the processes governing them.