The Surfaces and Atmospheres of Exoplanets

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My research team-the McGill Exoplanet Characterization Alliance (MEChA)-is a leader in using the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes to study giant planets orbiting close to their host star. In the next five years, MEChA members will harness data from the Spitzer, Hubble, and James Webb space telescopes to study the climates of all sorts of exotic planets: hot Jupiters, lava worlds, warm sub-Neptunes, and temperate terrestrial planets orbiting nearby red dwarf stars. In parallel, we will continue laying the groundwork for future telescopes and missions, including the CSA's EPPE microsatellite mission concept for the middle of this decade, ESA's ARIEL mission, launching in 2028, the Extremely Large Telescopes, due for first light at the end of this decade, and NASA's HabEx and LUVOIR flagship mission concepts for the 2030's. The James Webb Space Telescope will make its first science observations in 2022. As a member of the JWST/NIRISS exoplanet team, I will lead the analysis of the first spectroscopic phase curve obtained by the Canadian near-infrared instrument as part of guaranteed time observations. We will start by studying well-known hot Jupiters, but aim to characterize temperate terrestrial planets orbiting nearby red dwarf stars using the same techniques we have pioneered for hot Jupiters. The atmospheres of rocky planets orbiting red dwarfs will eventually be probed with extremely large telescopes from the ground, provided we can combine high contrast imaging and high dispersion spectroscopy to separate the light of an exoplanet from that of its star. I am involved in long-term plans to design such instruments and the necessary data pipelines, for telescopes in both the southern and the northern hemispheres. In the nearer-term, I am a member of the Science Legacy Survey team for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope's new SPIRou instrument, as well as the Science Team for the soon-to-be-commissioned NIRPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6 meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. These cutting-edge infrared spectrographs were designed to detect new worlds orbiting nearby stars, but MEChA will use them to map molecules and winds in the atmospheres of short period planets. While exoplanet astronomers plan to use JWST to study dozens of short period planets, it will take a dedicated mission to characterize hundreds-thousands of diverse exoplanets. ESA's ARIEL is scheduled to launch in 2028 and will do just that, obtaining infrared spectra for a thousand planets. ARIEL can be thought of as a smaller JWST, but entirely dedicated to exoplanets. I am part of the ARIEL Consortium, one of very few North Americans in a leadership role. In addition to paving the way for these next generation of exoplanet tools, MEChA will spend the next five years using current and near-term telescopes uncovering new atmospheric phenomena and advancing our understanding of the diverse climates of planets, including those that could support life.