3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161
Eliza Kempton (University of Maryland) "Revealing the Atmospheres of Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes with JWST"
JWST is finally allowing us to peer into the atmospheres of low-mass exoplanets (sub-Neptunes and super-Earths), which had been elusive atmospheric characterization targets with prior facilities like HST and Spitzer. This talk will summarize our path to characterizing low-mass exoplanet atmospheres, including where that effort is going now and into the future. I will motivate several key outstanding questions that have been identified along the way, such as: - What is the basic nature of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes? - Do water worlds exist? - What are the clouds or hazes that enshroud most sub-Neptunes? - Do rocky exoplanets orbiting M-dwarfs have atmospheres? To begin addressing these questions, I will present the first JWST observations of low-mass exoplanet atmospheres along with the interpretation of those intriguing measurements. I will conclude with a forward-looking view of what we can expect from the next few years of JWST atmospheric characterization efforts.
