Exoplanetary Atmospheres—Chemistry, Formation Conditions, and Habitability

• DOI: 10.1007/s11214-016-0254-3
• Publication Date: 2016-05-12T04:37:56Z
• Authors: Nikku Madhusudhan; Marcelino Agúndez; Julianne I. Moses; Yongyun Hu
• Keywords: Habitability; Gas giant; Planetary science; Direct imaging

Characterizing the atmospheres of extrasolar planets is new frontier in exoplanetary science. The last two decades exoplanet discoveries have revealed that exoplanets are very common and extremely diverse their orbital bulk properties. We now enter a era as we begin to investigate chemical diversity exoplanets, atmospheric interior processes, formation conditions. Recent developments field led unprecedented advancements our understanding chemistry implications for review these present work. detail theory all classes discovered date, from highly irradiated gas giants, ice super-Earths, directly imaged giant at large separations. then observational detections species various types using different methods, including transit spectroscopy, Doppler direct imaging. In addition detections, discuss advances determining abundances how such being used constrain conditions migration mechanisms. Finally, recent theoretical work on habitable followed by discussion future outlook field.