Spectroscopy of Planetary Atmospheres in Our Galaxy: Giovanna Tinetti Thérèse Encrenaz Athena Coustenis

Astron Astrophys Rev (2013) 21:63
DOI 10.1007/s00159-013-0063-6
R E V I E W A RT I C L E
Spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres in our Galaxy
Giovanna Tinetti · Thérèse Encrenaz ·

Athena Coustenis
Received: 5 September 2012 / Published online: 26 October 2013

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract About 20 years after the discovery of the first extrasolar planet, the number
of planets known has grown by three orders of magnitude, and continues to increase
at neck breaking pace. For most of these planets we have little information, except
for the fact that they exist and possess an address in our Galaxy. For about one third
of them, we know how much they weigh, their size and their orbital parameters. For
less than 20, we start to have some clues about their atmospheric temperature and
composition. How do we make progress from here?
We are still far from the completion of a hypothetical Hertzsprung–Russell dia-
gram for planets comparable to what we have for stars, and today we do not even
know whether such classification will ever be possible or even meaningful for plan-
etary objects. But one thing is clear: planetary parameters such as mass, radius and
temperature alone do not explain the diversity revealed by current observations. The
chemical composition of these planets is needed to trace back their formation history
and evolution, as happened for the planets in our Solar System. As in situ measure-
ments are and will remain off-limits for exoplanets, to study their chemical com-
position we will have to rely on remote sensing spectroscopic observations of their
gaseous envelopes.
G. Tinetti ()
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT, UK
e-mail: g.tinetti@ucl.ac.uk
T. Encrenaz · A. Coustenis
Laboratoire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA), Observatoire de
Paris, CNRS, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris-Diderot, 5, place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon
Cedex, France
T. Encrenaz
e-mail: therese.encrenaz@obspm.fr
A. Coustenis
e-mail: athena.coustenis@obspm.fr
Page 2 of 65 Astron Astrophys Rev (2013) 21:63
In this paper, we critically review the key achievements accomplished in the study
of exoplanet atmospheres in the past ten years. We discuss possible hurdles and the
way to overcome those. Finally, we review the prospects for the future. The knowl-
edge and the experience gained with the planets in our solar system will guide our
journey among those faraway worlds.
Keywords Extrasolar planets · Spectroscopy · Radiative transfer
1 Overview
Before 1995, the planets known were nine, i.e. the planets orbiting our favourite star,
the Sun, plus Pluto. Eighteen years later, we have “lost” Pluto but, on the other hand,
we have gained a thousand planets planets in orbit around other stars and this number
appears far from being final. The current statistical estimates seem to indicate that,
on average, every star in our Galaxy hosts at least one planetary companion (Cassan
et al. 2012). Given that the number of stars in the Milky Way is estimated to be ∼1011 ,
planetary scientists are expected to be kept busy in the next years!
While the number of planets discovered is still far from the hundreds of bil-
lions mentioned above, the NASA Kepler mission alone has announced thousands
of planetary candidates, which await confirmation (Borucki et al. 2011, Batalha
et al. 2013). The European Space Agency GAIA mission is expected to deliver sev-
eral thousands new planets via the astrometric technique (Casertano et al. 2008;
Sozzetti 2010). The NASA TESS mission (Ricker et al. 2010) is predicted to dis-
cover thousands transiting exoplanet candidates which are Earth-sized or larger. Are
those numbers large enough to provide a meaningful classification of planets as we
do with stars?
Astrophysics faced a similar situation with the classification of stars in the 20th
century. The striking observational phenomenon that the stellar brightness correlates
with its perceived colour was first noted by Russell (1910) and Hertzsprung (1912)
and allowed to link observations to a deep understanding of the stellar interior and
of the nuclear power source (Eddington 1924; Bethe 1939). It was soon realised that,
at first approximation, a star’s structure was uniquely determined by its mass, initial
chemical composition and age (i.e. the so-called Vogt–Russel theorem), and that, as
a consequence, in a given phase of star’s lifespan (main sequence, giant branch, etc.)
key parameters such as temperature, mass, etc., are well correlated. This behaviour
is a powerful observational tool that permits to derive, even if with some caveats, a
wide range of stellar parameters from a few basic observables.
Conversely, the knowledge of the mass may provide very little information about
a planet, namely if it is a gas giant, an icy giant or a rocky one, and sometimes the last
two categories cannot be distinguished from each other. For a planetary body, mass,
radius, temperature and chemical composition are often loosely correlated parame-
ters, and cannot be disentangled from the initial conditions, history and interaction
with the mother star. Even within the frontiers of our Solar System, there is a large
variety of cases, and one can hardly find two bodies with similar characteristics. One
would expect the complexity to increase when we cross the Kuiper belt boundaries
G. Tinetti et al.: Spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres in our Galaxy Page 3 of 65
and, from the little we know, this seems indeed to be the case. At the same time, only
by putting the Sun’s planets and environment in a broader context, we can interpret
correctly why is the Solar System as it is today.
The discovery of 51 Peg b by Mayor and Queloz (1995) represented a turning
point in the history of planets. This was not just the first exoplanet detected around a
main sequence star. The very existence of 51 Peg b was a true challenge to the “nebu-
lar theory” of planetary formation, according to which gas giants need to form in the
peripheral areas of the disc where most of the gas, ice and dust are located. To jus-
tify 51 Peg b and other similar objects currently known as “hot-Jupiters”, migration
mechanisms were invoked. To justify why Jupiter and Saturn did not migrate in, as
many of their gaseous siblings, the “Nice” model was conceived (Gomes et al. 2005;
Tsiganis et al. 2005; Morbidelli et al. 2005; Walsh et al. 2011). All of a sudden the So-
lar System had to be explained as an exception rather than being the standard model:
this was a paradigm shift that challenged irreversibly our “heliocentric” view of the
Universe.
During the past years, planets have been found around every type of stars from
A to M, including pulsars and binaries. Being the leftover of the stellar formation
process, planets appear to be rather ubiquitous, and in reality, the presence of a host
star is not always a mandatory circumstance (Zapatero-Osorio et al. 2000; Sumi et al.
2011).
Another prejudice that fell, was the idea that, based on some selection rules sug-
gested by the orbital shapes of the Sun’s planets, all planetary orbits had to be nearly
circular. Today we appreciate that more than 60 % of the exoplanets known move
on elliptical orbits, and in some cases the eccentricity reaches quite extreme values
(Fig. 1). If the orbit is very eccentric, the insolation changes dramatically through the
orbital period (Sertorio and Tinetti 2002; Williams and Pollard 2002; Iro and Deming
2010; Laughlin et al. 2009; Dobrovolskis 2013). The axial tilt and the ratio between
the rotation and orbital periods also play a pivotal role in the spatial-temporal distribu-
tion of the stellar irradiation on the planet (Williams and Kasting 1997; Sertorio and
Tinetti 2002). In our Solar System, most of the planets have an axial tilt which is less
than 27 degrees, with the exception of Uranus, whose rotation axis is approximately
Fig. 1 Orbital eccentricity

versus semi-major axis for
known exoplanets (Schneider
et al. 2013)
Fig. 2 Masses and radii of transiting exoplanets (fig. from Winn et al. 2011). Coloured lines show mass-ra-
dius relations for a variety of internal compositions
parallel with the ecliptic plane. Up to date, it has not been possible to constrain the
obliquity of an exoplanet. For the Sun’s planets, rotation periods vary from a fraction
of a day for gas and icy giants, to about one day for the Earth and Mars. In the case
of Venus and Mercury, their rotation period is very similar to their annual period. For
planets orbiting very close to their stellar companion, in fact, gravitational interaction
with their host star may result in the orbit circularisation and the synchronisation of
the rotation and revolution periods (Sect. 2).
The measurement of the planetary radius through transit observations (Charbon-
neau et al. 2000; Henry et al. 2000) combined with the measurement of the mass
with radial velocity, allowed for the very first estimates of the planetary bulk densi-
ties. This information is available today for almost 400 planets. We show in Fig. 2 a
mass-radius diagram from Winn et al. (2011). The additional information provided
by the planetary radius has stimulated very interesting theoretical work and debates,
but it is not sufficient to clarify the “big picture”. From Fig. 2, we appreciate that even
the giant gaseous planets have a rather spread-out distribution of densities, hinting at
a variety of internal structures/core compositions (e.g. Guillot et al. 2005; Fortney
et al. 2007). Objects lighter than ten Earth masses are even more enigmatic, as they
can be explained in different ways (Valencia et al. 2006, 2007; Sotin et al. 2007;
Seager et al. 2007; Adams et al. 2008; Grasset et al. 2009).
Knowing the star-planet distance and the type of the stellar companion, we can
infer the planetary equilibrium temperature. This information can be used as a first
guess to predict the most probable chemical composition of the planetary atmosphere
(Sect. 2). When we consider gaseous planets, which we know being composed mainly
by molecular hydrogen, this description could be a good approximation to portray
a static, thermochemical equilibrium case. Conversely, we would completely ignore
any perturbation caused by the variety of initial conditions and later events. We would
also disregard the impact of photochemistry and transport-induced quenching of dis-
equilibrium species. When it comes to terrestrial-type planets, the spectrum of possi-
Fig. 3 Key questions that can be addressed by transit spectroscopy
bilities is indeed much larger compared to the gaseous objects: it is very difficult to
guess a priori what the main atmospheric component should be, if any.
Constraints to the theoretical predictions need to come from the observations, as
happened for the planets in our own Solar System. The difficulty here is that we
cannot conceive in situ measurements in a foreseeable future, so our knowledge has
to rely on remote sensing observations. At present, two techniques can be used to
sound the atmospheres of exoplanets: the transit method and direct imaging. These
are very complementary techniques, as they can probe different categories of planets.
Let us focus first on the gaseous ones.
The transit technique may provide insight about planets which were formed in
the outer regions of their planetary disc and then migrated in (Fig. 3). Transit spec-
troscopy is, therefore, an excellent diagnostic to understand objects which have ex-
perienced a rather dramatic history, and probably substantial modifications, given the
extreme conditions in which they are and have been exposed to. We do not know
today whether or not transiting gaseous planets have maintained any chemical trace
of their formation and migration history. If not, then it should be relatively easy to
classify such objects according to the temperature and the type of stellar companion,
as those should be the key ingredients to model the current atmospheric composi-
tion. Needless to say, in this case it would be extremely difficult to reconstruct the
formation and evolution history of these planets, as no chemical memory of the past
would have been preserved. By contrast, if the initial conditions play an important
role in the current structure and composition of these planets, then a variety of cases
should be expected, and an accurate classification would be rather difficult. Although
scientists like rigorous classifications, as they allow for a simplified description of the
reality through a few parameters, the second hypothesis is certainly more intriguing
and probably more realistic.
In parallel with transit studies, in the next decade, direct imaging is expected to
provide insight about hot, young planets at large separations from their parent star—
i.e. gaseous planets newly formed in the outer regions of their planetary disc and
not (yet?) migrated in—or planets formed closer in and then kicked out through dy-
namical interactions with the other planets in the disc. The first spectrum of a hot,
giant planet, at a projected separation of 38 AU from its host star, was observed with
the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT)/NACO by Janson et al. (2010). Photometric
data in the NIR were obtained for a couple of similar planets (Currie et al. 2011;
Barman et al. 2011). Spectroscopy in the wavelength range of YJHK-band will start
soon with dedicated instruments on VLT (SPHERE) and Gemini (GPI). By compar-
ing the chemical composition of these young gaseous objects to the composition of
their migrated siblings probed through transit, we should be able to understand better
the role played by migration and by extreme irradiation on gaseous planets formation
and evolution. Further into the future, this technique should also provide information
about “old”—and therefore cold—gaseous planets at large separation, i.e. planets
more similar to Jupiter and Saturn, allowing for a direct comparison with the Solar
System’s gas giants.
The story for smaller, terrestrial-type planets could be radically different: several
scenarios might occur (Fig. 3). To start with, these objects could have been formed
in situ, or have moved from their original location because of dynamical interaction
with other bodies (Raymond et al. 2009), or they could be remnant cores of more
massive gaseous objects migrated in Grasset (2013).
Having lower masses, their atmospheres may have evolved quite dramatically
from their initial composition: lighter molecules, like hydrogen, can escape more
readily (Sect. 3.2). This certainly happened to the terrestrial planets in our Solar Sys-
tem: in Venus’ and Mars’ atmospheres the D/H ratio is between 5 and 200 times the
Solar ratio, suggesting water on the surface was lost through time (Owen et al. 1988;
Encrenaz 2009). Impacts with other bodies, such as asteroids or comets, or volcanic
activity might also significantly alter the composition of the primordial atmosphere,
not to mention life, which on Earth is responsible e.g. for the production of molecular
oxygen, accounting for 21 % of the overall atmospheric volume (Lovelock 1975; Rye
and Holland 1998).
At its dawn, the field of exoplanets has been predominantly driven by the search
for extraterrestrial life and other habitable worlds. This search was heavily biased
towards a geocentric concept of habitable planet: such a planet had to weigh like
the Earth, had to orbit a star similar to the Sun, on a quasi-circular orbit at the right
distance to allow for the presence of liquid water, etc. (Sect. 6). To get to the “Earth-
twin”, no experiment appeared to be too challenging or expensive (Bracewell 1978;
Angel et al. 1986; Léger et al. 1996).
The discovery of the super-Earths, planets with masses between the Earth mass
and ten Earth masses, has shaken this pre-Galilean view of how a habitable world
should or should not be. Because of their larger size compared to our own planet, the
super-Earths have opened new perspectives in terms of observability. Transit spec-
troscopy is the ideal technique to probe temperate planets around M-dwarfs. These
are by far the most common type of stars in our Galaxy, albeit much smaller, dim-
mer and cooler than stars like our sun: if the host star is bright enough, these ob-
jects are within reach the current or the near-term future facilities (Bean et al. 2010;
Berta et al. 2012). For temperate planets around earlier-type stars, direct imaging will
be a more appropriate technique as transit observations would be rather impractical in
these cases. The hunt for exo-moons as other possible abodes of life is now one of the
hottest subject (Williams et al. 1997; Sartoretti and Schneider 1999; Kipping 2009a,
2009b). While the race to find the very first one with Kepler (Kipping et al. 2009) or
other techniques (Han 2008; Lewis et al. 2008; Simon et al. 2009) has become rather
fierce, the new ESA Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) mission will provide new
insight about Jupiter’s environment and its impact on the Galilean moons (Dougherty
et al. 2012).
In the following sections, we give a brief overview of the transit method to sound
exoplanet atmospheres and we report key achievements accomplished in the last ten
years in this exciting new field (Sect. 2). While photometric and spectroscopic obser-
vations of gaseous planets with Spitzer, Hubble and ground-based observatories have
provided the very first detections of ionic, atomic and molecular species in some of
those exotic atmospheres, the data available are still too sparse to provide a consis-
tent interpretation, or any meaningful classification of the planets analysed. More and
better-quality data are needed for this purpose. Atmospheric models of exoplanets, in-
ferred from their equilibrium temperature and associated with different mechanisms
are discussed in Sects. 3 and 4. In Sect. 5, infrared spectra of exoplanets are pre-
sented, with a discussion of the need for better spectroscopic data. In the next decade,
a combination of new, larger telescopes and improved instrumentation, together with
dedicated space missions currently under study, should do the trick (Sect. 7).
And what will be the next steps to take once we have understood everything we
need to know about planets in our own Galaxy? For planets in galaxies at redshift
z ∼ 0, one would expect the very same conclusions should be drawn, as the Uni-
verse is homogeneous and isotropic on a macroscopic scale. The question becomes
interesting for planets in Galaxies at high redshift, which is equivalent to digging in
our past. In those galaxies, star formation processes and stellar metallicity might be
radically different from the current situation in the Milky Way (e.g. Trenti et al. 2012
and ref. therein). As explained in Sect. 4, stellar metallicity is expected to have an
important impact on planetary formation.
And what about the future? If the Universe is expanding at an accelerating pace
(Riess et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999; Komatsu et al. 2011), then we should prob-
ably expect a cold and lonely end (Dyson 1979). But that is another story, and maybe
we should leave this one to cosmologists.
2 Transit spectroscopy: what can it tell us?
The transit phenomenon takes place when a celestial body, as seen from Earth, crosses
the path of a more distant object with an angular diameter larger than its own. If the
distant body has a smaller diameter, the event is called an occultation. The most pop-
ular event of this kind is the solar eclipse by the Moon, where both objects have typi-
cally the same angular diameter. In the solar system, transits of Venus and Mercury in
front of the Sun are occasionally observed, but occultations of other solar-system ob-
jects in front of stars are also known to happen. Planetary transits have been observed
since perhaps the dawn of civilisation (Avicenna, ∼1000 A.D.). Despite the Seven
Years’ War, the transit of Venus in 1761 marked the first scientific project undertaken
on an international scale.
The same phenomenon can occur in the case of exoplanets whose orbits are
aligned so they cross the surface of their mother star when viewed from Earth. When
the planet passes in front of the star, the event is called a primary (or direct) transit;
when it passes behind the star, it is called a secondary (or indirect) transit or an eclipse
or, more properly, an occultation. In what follows, we call the events primary transit
and secondary eclipse as these terms are most commonly used in the literature. In
both cases, the information on the exoplanet’s atmosphere is retrieved from the flux
difference of the star + planet system before, during and between the transit. Such
observations are at the limit of detectability in terms of sensitivity, as the planet to
star flux contrast, in the best cases—hot Jupiters—is about 10−6 in the visible range
and a few 10−3 in the mid-infrared range (10 μm).
An important parameter to consider for understanding the atmospheric behaviour
of transiting exoplanets is their rotation. For solar-type stars, planets located within
0.05 AU from their host star are predicted to be tidally locked, i.e. they always show
the same face to the star. This effect is due to gravitational interaction which results
in the orbit circularisation and the synchronisation of the rotation and revolution pe-
riods. The critical distance for tidal lock is about 0.5 AU for a solar-type star, and is
proportional to [M ∗ ]1/3 for a star of mass M ∗ (Kasting et al. 1993). For M-type stars
of 0.1 and 0.01 solar mass, planets are thus expected to be tidally locked within a
distance of 0.2 AU and 0.08 AU, respectively (Forget and Wordsworth 2010). As the
stellar flux is always concentrated on the same hemisphere of the planet, strong atmo-
spheric circulation should take place between the dayside and the nightside (see e.g.
Cho et al. 2003, 2008; Cooper and Showman 2005, 2006; Iro et al. 2005; Rauscher
et al. 2007, 2008a, 2008b; Thrastarson and Cho 2010). This circulation pattern can
be studied by monitoring the planetary phase curve (see Sect. 2.3).
2.1 Primary transits
2.1.1 Geometry of a primary transit
When a planet passes in front of its host star, the star flux is reduced by a few of
percent, corresponding to the planet/star surface ratio. The planetary radius can be
inferred from this measurement. If atomic or molecular species are present in the
exoplanet’s atmosphere, the inferred radius is larger at some specific wavelengths
(absorption) corresponding to the spectral signatures of these species (Seager and
Sasselov 2000; Brown 2001, Tinetti et al. 2007b).
At zero-order approximation, the area of planetary atmospheres observed in trans-
mission is an annulus around the planet with a radial height of a few scale heights
(usually four or five in the infrared). The scale height H is equal to kT /μg, where
k is the Boltzmann constant, T the temperature, μ the mean molecular weight of
the atmosphere and g the planet’s gravity. The amplitude of the absorption can be
approximated as
A ∼ 5 · [2Rp H /R ∗2 ] (1)
where Rp and R ∗ are the radii of the planet and the star, respectively. The signature
is especially strong for hot planets, light atmospheres and low gravity objects. “Hot
Jupiters” are therefore privileged targets for primary transits.
Primary transits probe the exoplanet’s atmosphere at the terminator, at both morn-
ing and evening sides. In the case of tidally locked planets, this observation is of
special interest for probing sub-stellar to anti-stellar winds, as observed, on a much
lower scale, in the case of the Venus mesosphere (Goldstein et al. 1991). Primary
transit spectroscopy has some advantages in the identification of the atmospheric
constituents, as all species are observed in absorption along the line of sight. The
information is retrieved on their column densities, i.e. on their partial pressures at a
given atmospheric level corresponding to an optical depth of unity. By contrast, ab-
solute measurements of the molecular abundances are not always obtainable. These
considerations cannot be explained by the approximation (1), and we need to show
the complete calculations. We use here the notation adopted by Tinetti et al. (2012a,
2012b), see also Seager and Sasselov (2000), Brown (2001).
According to Beer–Bouguer–Lambert’s law, we have

I (λ, z) = I0 e−τ (λ,z) ; τ (λ, z) = τi (λ, z) (2)
i
where:
I0 = stellar radiation intensity
I = stellar radiation intensity filtered through the planetary atmosphere
λ = wavelength
z = altitude above Rp
τ = optical path
i = absorber
To convert the altitude (observable) to pressure (thermodynamic variable) we use the
hydrostatic equilibrium approximation and the ideal gas law for a gas of N parti-
cles and volume V , which are reasonable approximations below the homopause.1
1 The homopause is the frontier which separates the homosphere (below), where atmospheric constituents
are mixed, from the heterosphere (above), where the density of each compound decreases according to its
own scale height.
Fig. 4 Geometry of transit spectroscopy: the photons from the star are filtered through the atmosphere of
the planet
We have
p N
= kT ; dp = μρg dz; ρ= (3)
ρ V
The quantum interaction between the photons and the atmospheric absorbers is ac-
counted for in the calculation of the optical path (e.g. Goody and Yung 1989):
(z)
τi (λ, z) = 2 ρ z χi z σi (λ, T ) d; (4)
0
In (4) σi and χi are the absorption coefficient and the mixing ratio for the ith absorber.
The path traversed by stellar photons, , can be easily obtained through geometrical
calculations (see Fig. 4):

2 2
d = Rp + z + dz − (Rp + z)2 − Rp + z − (Rp + z)2

(z) = d = (Rp + zmax )2 − (Rp + z)2
Finally, the transit depth as a function of wavelength is given by

z
Rp2 + 2 0 max (Rp + z)(1 − e−τ (z,λ) ) dz
k(λ) =
R∗2
zmax (5)
2 (Rp + z)(1 − e−τ (z,λ) ) dz
A(λ) = 0
R∗2
Equation (5) has a unique solution provided we know Rp accurately. Rp is the plan-
etary radius at which the planet becomes opaque at all λ. For a terrestrial planet, Rp
Fig. 5 Detection of C II in the exosphere of HD209458b with Hubble-COS (Linsky et al. 2010)
usually coincides with the radius at the surface. In contrast, for a gaseous planet, Rp
may correspond to a pressure p0 ∼ 1–10 bar, depending on the transparency of the
atmosphere.
From Eqs. (4) and (5) we can estimate the molecular/atomic abundances, χi , only
if the atmosphere is transparent in some spectral bands, so that we can use those in-
tervals to measure Rp . For gaseous planets, the level of the continuum in the IR is
given by H2 –H2 (Borysow et al. 2001) if there are no clouds. If molecules such as wa-
ter vapour are present, it is more difficult to estimate Rp : H2 O absorbs continuously
and strongly in all the IR, leaving out just the UV–VIS and part of the NIR. These
spectral intervals can be used to estimate Rp only if no clouds are present. Given
that hot-Jupiters’ spectra are dominated by water vapour absorption, this explains the
origin of the degeneracy of molecular abundances retrieved from observations.
2.1.2 Primary transit observations
The upper atmosphere of an exoplanet can be effectively probed by transit technique

and transmission spectroscopy (Coustenis et al. 1997). Observations from space, with
HST/STIS-COS, and from the ground, unveiled a population of ions and radicals
wrapping the planet like an envelope and partially occulting the star. These obser-
vations are suggestive of escape processes: Jeans escape or hydrodynamical mecha-
nisms (Vidal-Madjar et al. 2003, 2004; Ben-Jaffel 2007, 2008; Ben-Jaffel and Hos-
seini 2010; Linsky et al. 2010; Lecavelier des Etangs et al. 2010, 2012; Fossati et al.
2010; Jensen et al. 2012). We show in Fig. 5 the results published by Linsky et al.
(2010) for C II, obtained with Hubble-COS.
After the discovery of Na in the atmosphere of HD209458b (Charbonneau et al.
2002), repeated measurements of alkali metals on other planets have been reported
in the literature, from space and the ground (e.g. sodium: Redfield et al. 2008;
Snellen et al. 2008; Wood et al. 2011; potassium: Colon et al. 2010; Sing et al. 2011a).
For some of these planets, the authors estimate the abundances of the alkali metals
to be greatly depleted relative to solar and attribute this effect to the presence of
clouds or to photo-ionisation. An interesting, alternative explanation was proposed
by Atreya et al. (2003), who suggested that, instead of being primordial, the observed
alkali metals may be largely of non-planetary origin, i.e. from debris, meteorites and
comets.
Hazes or clouds of unknown composition may affect the transparency of some
of the observed atmospheres in the visible spectral range (e.g. Knutson et al. 2007;
Barman 2007; Pont et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2011b). The hot-Jupiters XO-1b and XO-2b
(Tinetti et al. 2010; Crouzet et al. 2012), WASP-12b (Swain et al. 2012), HD209458b
(Deming et al. 2013) and HD189733b (Danielski et al. 2012) show instead distinctive
molecular features in the NIR spectral region (Fig. 6).
The infrared range offers the possibility of probing the neutral atmospheres of the
exoplanets. Observations have been performed from space with Spitzer/IRAC-IRS-
MIPS and with the Hubble Space Telescope/NICMOS-WFC3, and from the ground
(VLT, IRTF, Keck), see Fig. 6. In the IR the spectral features are more intense and
broader than in the visible (Tinetti et al. 2007b), hence easier to detect.
On a large scale, the transmission spectra of hot-Jupiters seem to be domi-
nated by the signature of water vapour (Barman 2007, 2008; Beaulieu et al. 2010;
Burrows et al. 2007, 2008, 2010; Charbonneau et al. 2008; Grillmair et al. 2008;
Knutson et al. 2008; Madhusudhan and Seager (2009); Tinetti et al. 2007a, 2007b,
2010), whereas warm Neptunes, such as GJ 436b and GJ 3470b, are expected to be
methane-rich (Beaulieu et al. 2011; Fukui et al. 2013). The analysis of GJ 436b can-
not be considered conclusive, though, given the activity of the star (Knutson et al.
2011) and the lack of spectroscopic data: only photometric data, often recorded at
different times, are available for this target. The presence of methane is predicted by
photochemical models (Moses et al. 2011; Line et al. 2011), but would need further
spectroscopic confirmation on a larger sample of targets. The HST/NICMOS transit
observations of the planet HD189733b (Swain et al. 2008) led to the identification of
H2 O and CH4 in the atmosphere of that planet (see also Waldmann et al. 2013 and
Madhusudhan and Seager 2009). CO is a tricky molecule to detect from space, as
the spectral resolution obtainable is not sufficient to distinguish it from CH4 or CO2 .
The method pioneered by Snellen et al. (2010) using the VLT-CRIRES instrument,
allowed for the first robust detection of CO in the atmospheres of HD209458b and
HD189733b (De Kok et al. 2013). The method can be used also for non-transiting
planets, as shown by Brogi et al. (2012) on τ Bootis b, opening a new field of appli-
cations of this powerful technique.
The ∼6 Earth mass, warm planet GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009) has been
the first super-Earth to be probed spectroscopically (Bean et al. 2010). The VLT
Fig. 6 Collection of IR transit data recorded and interpreted by multiple teams, see discussion in
Sect. 2.1.2. Top figures: NIR transit spectra for HD189733b observed with Hubble-NICMOS (left, Swain
et al. 2008, see also Waldmann et al. 2013) and from the ground (right, Danielski et al. 2012). Centre:
best solution retrieved by Madhusudhan and Seager (2009). Second row: differential photometric data and
spectrum for HD209458b. Left and centre: data observed with Spitzer IRAC and MIPS and interpretations
(Beaulieu et al. 2010; Burrows et al. 2010). Right: transit spectrum observed with Hubble WFC3 (Deming
et al. 2013). Third row: NIR transit spectra recorded with NICMOS for XO1-b (left: Tinetti et al. 2010)
and XO2-b (fourth row, Crouzet et al. 2012) and interpretations. Bottom figure: available data from space
and the ground and interpretation for GJ 1214b (Berta et al. 2012, see also Bean et al. 2010)
observations were followed by other space and ground data (Bean et al. 2011;
Croll et al. 2011; Crossfield et al. 2011; Désert et al. 2011; Berta et al. 2012) which
are suggestive of an atmosphere heavier than pure molecular hydrogen, but additional
observations are needed to confirm its composition (see Fig. 6).
In the past, parametric models have extensively been used by several teams to
remove the instrument’s systematic effects (e.g. Agol et al. 2010; Beaulieu et al.
2008, 2010, 2011; Brown 2001; Burke et al. 2010; Charbonneau et al. 2005, 2008;
Deming et al. 2013; Désert et al. 2011; Grillmair et al. 2008; Knutson et al. 2007;
Machalek et al. 2009; Pont et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2011a; Stevenson et al. 2010;
Swain et al. 2008, 2009b). Parametric models approximate systematic noise via the
use of auxiliary information of the instrument, the so-called optical state vectors,
which often include the positional drifts of the star on the detector, the focus and
the detector temperature changes, the positional angles of the telescope on the sky
etc. In the case of dedicated missions, such as Kepler (Jenkins et al. 2010), the
instrument response functions are well characterised in advance and conceived to
reach the required 10−4 to 10−5 photometric precision. For general purpose instru-
ments, not calibrated to reach this required precision, poorly sampled optical state
vectors or a missing parameterisation of the instrument often become critical is-
sues. The way forward is to adopt new and independent data analysis techniques
to break the noise-result degeneracy more efficiently and recover the original re-
sults (Waldmann 2012, 2013; Waldmann et al. 2013). Statistical techniques used in
cosmology and communication science to optimise the extraction of a weak signal
from a noisy background find more and more applicability in the analysis of ex-
oplanetary signals (e.g. Carter and Winn 2009; Gregory 2011; Feroz et al. 2011;
Gibson et al. 2012).
2.2 Secondary eclipses
A direct measurement of the planet’s emission/reflection can be obtained through the

observation of the planetary eclipse, by recording the difference between the com-
bined star + planet signal, measured just before and after the eclipse, and the stellar
flux alone, measured during the eclipse. In contrast with the primary transit observa-
tions, the dayside of the planet is observed, which makes both methods fully comple-
mentary.
As discussed in Sect. 5.1, infrared spectra—typically above 1 μm—are dominated
by thermal emission and the observed spectra strongly depend on the atmospheric
thermal structure. If a stratosphere is present, molecular signatures can appear either
in emission or in absorption, depending on their formation region, above or below
the tropopause (see, e.g. Encrenaz et al. 2004; Sect. 5.1); the interpretation of the
spectrum is thus less obvious, as it requires the simultaneous retrieval of the vertical
distribution of the temperature.
Observations provide measurements of the flux emitted and/or reflected by the
planet in units of the stellar flux (Charbonneau et al. 2005; Deming et al. 2005). The
planet/star flux ratio η(λ) is defined as
2
η(λ) = Rp /R ∗ Fp (λ)/F ∗ (λ) (6)
The stellar and planetary spectra can be modelled by radiative-transfer calculations,

accounting for scattering processes, ionic, atomic and molecular opacities (see e.g.
Chandrasekhar 1960; Goody and Yung 1989; Liou 2002)
Fig. 7a Available data for HD189733b observed by multiple teams using secondary eclipse method
and retrieved solutions. The data were recorded with Spitzer IRAC/IRS/MIPS (Charbonneau et al. 2008;
Grillmair et al. 2008; Deming et al. 2006) and Hubble NICMOS (Swain et al. 2009a, 2009b). The spectral
simulations and data interpretations, were performed by different teams, using radiative-transfer models
and spectral retrieval methods. All the teams conclude the best fit is obtainable with a combination of H2 O,
CH4 , CO and CO2 . Top left: best fit by Tinetti and Griffith (Swain et al. 2009a; Tinetti and Griffith 2010).
Top right: best solutions retrieved by Madhusudhan and Seager (2009). Bottom left: best fit by Lee et al.
(2012). Bottom right: best solutions retrieved by Line et al. (2012)
At zero-order approximation, the emitted component of the planetary contribution

can be estimated by blackbody curves at the stellar and planetary temperatures (T ∗
and Tp ):
2
η(λ) = Rp /R ∗ Bp (λ, Tp )/B ∗ (λ, Tp ) (7)
For the reflected component, at zero-order one can write
2
η(λ) = Rp /R ∗ Aζ R ∗2 /D 2 F ∗ (λ)/F ∗ (λ) = (Rp /D)2 Aζ (8)
where A is the planetary albedo ζ is the observed fraction of the planet illuminated
and D the semi-major axis.
Combining near-infrared (NIR) with mid-infrared (MIR) eclipse spectra from
space and ground measurements, a consensus has been reached that the absorptions
due to H2 O, CH4 , CO and CO2 explain most of the features present in the hot-Jupiters
analysed. In Fig. 7a, we show the photometric and spectroscopic data relative to
the planet HD189733b, collected by multiple teams using Spitzer IRAC/IRS/MIPS
(Charbonneau et al. 2008; Grillmair et al. 2008; Deming et al. 2006) and Hubble
NICMOS (Swain et al. 2009a, 2009b), and their interpretations (Swain et al. 2009a,
Fig. 7b Available data for HD209458b observed by multiple teams using secondary eclipse method and
retrieved solutions. The data were recorded with Spitzer IRAC/IRS/MIPS (Knutson et al. 2007; Swain et al.
2008; Deming et al. 2005) and Hubble NICMOS (Swain et al. 2009b). The spectral simulations and data
interpretations, were performed by different teams, using radiative-transfer models and spectral retrieval
methods. All the teams agree that water vapour and the presence of a stratosphere are a good baseline to
fit the data. Models including data from NICMOS, conclude the best fit is obtainable with a combination
of H2 O, CH4 , CO and CO2 . Top left: best fit by Burrows et al. (2007). Top right: best solutions retrieved
by Griffith and Tinetti (Griffith and Tinetti 2010; Swain et al. 2009b). Bottom: best solutions retrieved by
Madhusudhan and Seager (2009)
2009b; Madhusudhan and Seager 2009; Lee et al. 2012; Line et al. 2012). In Fig. 7b,
we show the photometric and spectroscopic data relative to the planet HD209458b
collected by different teams using, Spitzer IRAC/IRS/MIPS (Knutson et al. 2007;
Swain et al. 2008; Deming et al. 2005) and Hubble NICMOS (Swain et al. 2009b),
and the related interpretations (Burrows et al. 2007; Swain et al. 2009b; Madhusudhan
and Seager 2009). While the different radiative-transfer models and spectral retrieval
schemes adopted indicate the same atmospheric composition, there is no agreement
on the abundances retrieved. This is only in part due to the degeneracy embedded
in the observations,—which are often sparse and with large uncertainties—and in
the well-known difficulty associated with emission spectroscopy in retrieving simul-
taneously the thermal profile and the molecular abundances. The different spectro-
scopic line lists adopted by the different teams play an important role (see Sects. 5.3.2
and 5.3.5).
An unexpected result from the ground is the detection of a methane emission at
3.3 μm in HD189733b, attributed to non-LTE mechanisms (Swain et al. 2010; Wald-
mann et al. 2012), which opens new perspectives for future ground-based transit ob-
servations.
2.3 Planet phase-variations
In addition to transit and eclipse observations, monitoring the flux of the star+planet
system over the orbital period allows to retrieve information on the planet emission
at different phase angles. Such observations have to be performed from space, as they
typically expand over a time interval of more than a day.
In the visible range, the phase curve of the transiting planet CoRoT-1b (Snellen
et al. 2009) shows evidence for a strong contrast between a dark nightside and a
bright dayside dominated by reflected starlight. Similar conclusions were reached for
HAT-P-7b, observed by Kepler (Borucki et al. 2009).
In the case of HD189733b, Knutson et al. (2007) measured a small thermal gra-
dient between dayside and nightside using Spitzer/IRAC at 8 μm. If the atmospheric
opacities are similar on the dayside and nightside, this would imply an efficient
energy distribution between the two hemispheres through atmospheric circulation.
These observations also show an offset of the hottest point of the disk relative to
the sub-stellar point, suggesting an energy transport from the stellar side to the anti-
stellar side. Further analyses were performed by de Wit et al. (2012) and by Majeau
et al. (2012) who derived two-dimensional thermal intensity maps of the planet using
Spitzer/IRAC at 8 μm.
Similar observations were reported at different wavelengths in the IR and for other
transiting hot-Jupiters (Knutson et al. 2009, 2012; Cowan et al. 2007; Laughlin et al.
2009). Phase-curve measurements are very informative observations, but it is often
difficult to disentangle the planetary signal from the instrument systematics, such as
the detector response function. This is particularly true for non-dedicated instruments
and observational timescales of several tens of hours, as required for phase curves.
The combination of primary transits, secondary eclipses and phase curves can be
used to infer constraints on the atmospheric circulation and dynamics of hot Jupiters
(e.g. Cho et al. 2003, 2008; Showman et al. 2009; Showman and Polvani 2011;
Rauscher et al. 2008a, 2008b; Thrastarson and Cho 2010).
Phase-curve measurements can also be obtained on non-transiting planets, if the
inclination angle of the system is high. Such observations have been performed at
24 μm by Harrington et al. (2006) and Crossfield et al. (2010) on the inner, non-
transiting planet υ and b.
3 Atmospheric composition of transiting planets: what can we expect?
In this section, we try to guess the possible composition of an exoplanet on the basis
of its mass, its distance to its host star and the spectral type of this star. The radius
of the planet, when known, is used to constrain the object’s density and its possible
internal structure.
3.1 Mass and temperature
We consider three classes of mass: Jupiters (M > 20ME ), Neptunes (10–20ME ) and
Small Exos (M < 10ME ) and five classes of temperatures: very hot (T > 2000 K),
hot (800 < T < 2000 K), warm (350–800 K), temperate (250–350 K) and cold (T <
250 K).
The “Small Exos” include the super Earths, but also objects less massive than the
Earth. The limit of 10ME is chosen as a typical threshold between solid bodies, with
little or no atmospheric contribution in their mass, and gaseous planets, formed from
a core with a gravity field sufficient to capture the protostellar gas, namely hydrogen
and helium (Mizuno 1980; Pollack et al. 1996).
The equilibrium temperature Te of the exoplanet is defined as the temperature of
the blackbody which emits the same quantity of absorbed stellar flux, and it can be
estimated as follows:
∗ 2
F /D (1 − A) = 2σ Te4 (9)
where F ∗ is the stellar flux, D is the distance to the star, a is the albedo, σ is the
Stefan–Boltzmann constant and Te is the equilibrium temperature. This equation cor-
responds to the slow rotation or phase-locked object (just a half-hemisphere radiates
back to space, Sect. 2.2). For a fast-rotating object, the factor 2 would be replaced
by 4, as the planet radiates back to space over the entire solid angle.
The above equation can also be written
1/2 1/2
Te = (1 − A)1/4 · 331 T ∗ /5770 · R ∗ /D (10)
for a slow-rotating or phase-locked planet, and

1/2 1/2
Te = (1 − A)1/4 · 279 T ∗ /5770 · R ∗ /D (11)
for a fast-rotating planet. T ∗ and R ∗ are the effective temperature of the star (in
K) and its radius (in solar radii), respectively. In what follows, we adopt Eq. (10)
for planets located within the tidal-lock limit (see Sect. 2) and Eq. (11) for planets
located beyond this limit.
The albedo is unknown for most exoplanets. A typical value for solar-system plan-
ets is 0.3; other solar-system objects range from about 0.04 (comets) to 0.1–0.2 (aster-
oids and trans-neptunian objects), with some brighter objects like Venus (0.8) or Sat-
urn’s satellite Enceladus (close to 1). In the case of giant exoplanets, Sudarsky et al.
(2000) predicted albedos of about 0.3 for cold Jupiters (<150 K, NH3 cloud, class I),
about 0.3–0.8 for temperate Jupiters (150 K < Te < 350 K, H2 O cloud, class II),
about 0.1 for warm Jupiters (350 K < Te < 800 K, clear objects with metallic absorp-
tion, class III) and 0.02–0.03 for hot Jupiters (800–1500 K, clear objects, class IV).
The lowest albedo inferred from observations is 0.025 for the hot-Jupiter TrES-2b
(Kipping and Spiegel 2011) in agreement with these predictions, but also upper lim-
its for HD209458b and HD189733b seem to be consistent (Rowe et al. 2006). In what
follows, we will adopt the following values for the albedo A:
A = 0.03 for hot and warm Jupiters and Neptunes (the low albedo is assumed to be
due to Rayleigh or Mie scattering);
A = 0.3 for temperate Jupiters and Neptunes (reflection above a cloud surface is
assumed) and for all small Exos (reflection above the surface is assumed).
Table 1 The equilibrium temperature Te (in K) of an exoplanet as a function of its asterocentric distance
for different spectral types of the host star. Two values of the albedo are assumed, A = 0.3 (upper line)
and A = 0.03 (lower line). A = 0.3 corresponds to small Exos and to temperate Jupiters and Neptunes;
A = 0.03 corresponds to hot and warm Jupiters and Neptunes (see text, Sect. 3). For distances of 0.05 and
0.1 AU, Te is calculated for synchronous rotation and refers to the dayside hemisphere of the planet. At
higher distances, Te is calculated for a fast-rotating planet
Distance to the star (AU) 0.05 0.1 1 5 20
A (T = 10000 K) 3315 2344 625 279 140

R ∗ = 2.0Rsol 3598 2544 678 303 152
F (T = 7000 K) 1516 1072 339 152 76
R ∗ = 1.2Rsol 1645 1163 368 164 82
G (T = 5770 K) 1353 956 255 114 57
R ∗ = 1.0Rsol 1468 1038 277 124 62
K (T = 4200 K) 693 490 155 69 34
R ∗ = 0.7Rsol 752 532 168 75 37
M (T = 3200 K) 344 243 77 34 17
R ∗ = 0.3Rsol 373 264 84 37 19
Table 1 shows the expected equilibrium temperatures at various distances from the
stars for different spectral types. For distances of 0.05 and 0.1 AU, we calculate
the equilibrium temperatures corresponding to synchronous rotation. For larger dis-
tances, we assume fast-rotating objects. The equilibrium temperatures differ by a
factor 21/4 ∼ 1.2.
3.2 Escape and evolution
Once the equilibrium temperature of the planet is known, we can test the stability of
its atmosphere by comparing its escape velocity to the thermal velocity of different
molecules. The escape velocity Vesc is
Vesc = [2GMP /RP ]1/2 (12)
where G is the universal gravity constant: MP and RP are the planet’s mass and
radius. The thermal velocity of a molecule (defined as the root mean square of the
total velocity, in three dimensions) is
Vth = [3kTth N/μ]1/2 (13)
where k is Boltzmann’s constant, N is the Avogadro number and μ is the molar

mass of the molecule (for example, μ = 2 for H2 ). Tth is the thermospheric planetary
temperature, i.e. the temperature of the upper atmosphere where atmospheric escape
takes place. In a given atmosphere, a molecule is stable over the solar-system lifetime
if the following condition is fulfilled (Spitzer 1952):
Vth < 0.2Vesc (14)

The critical mass μc is the value for which Vesc = Vth :

μc = 3kTth N/ 0.04Vesc
2
(15)
In the solar system, the escape velocity is 11.2 km/s for the Earth, 4.2 km/s for Mer-
cury and 59.5 km/s for Jupiter. Using a thermospheric temperature of 1500 K and
1000 K for the Earth and Jupiter, respectively, we find μc = 7.4 and 0.17 for the two
planets. This illustrates that even atomic hydrogen is stable on Jupiter (as well as on
the other giant planets) over the timescale of the solar system.
In the case of the exoplanets, the thermospheric temperature is unknown. As we
discuss below, observations in the UV are available for a few hot-Jupiters, and can
be used to constrain the thermospheric temperature of those objects. For all other
planets, we can use the equilibrium temperature from (10) as a first guess of the
thermospheric temperature. We note that the inferred value of μc is expected to be
a lower limit, as the thermospheric temperature is plausibly much higher than the
equilibrium temperature of the planet.
Sophisticated models for the chemistry, photo-ionisation and aeronomy of hot
Jupiters were developed by Yelle (2004), Koskinen et al. (2007, 2012) and Gar-
cia Munoz (2007). Tian et al. (2005) and Murray-Clay et al. (2009) performed hydro-
dynamic calculations of thermally driven atmospheric escape, and Stone and Proga
(2009), Trammell et al. (2011), and Adams (2011) included the planetary magnetic
field geometry, where gas escapes through open field lines. All these models pre-
dict mass-loss rates <1010 g/s, not enough to cause the evaporation of the planet
in a short timescale. Cohen and Glocer (2012) estimated the acceleration of the at-
mospheric ions due to ambipolar electric fields where magnetic field lines are open.
They concluded that this effect is far from being negligible and should increase the
mass-loss rate by at least an order of magnitude.
Tables 2, 3 and 4 give the list of exoplanets potentially observable through transit
measurements, i.e. transiting stars brighter than V = 13, in the case of Jupiters and
Neptunes, and stars brighter than K = 9 in the case of small Exos around M-dwarfs.
We include their masses, radii, densities, semi-major axes, equilibrium temperatures,
escape velocities and critical escape atomic masses.
3.3 Hot and warm Jupiters and Neptunes
Initial estimates of the composition of an exoplanet atmosphere, can be inferred as-

suming thermochemical equilibrium and cosmic abundances within the protostellar
disk at the time of planetary formation. The form in which carbon and nitrogen can
be found depends upon the following gas phase equilibrium reactions (Lewis 1995):
CO + 3H2 ↔ CH4 + H2 O (16)

N2 + 3H2 ↔ 2NH3 (17)
These reactions evolve toward the right-hand side at low temperature and high pres-
sure, and toward the left-hand side under the opposite conditions. In the solar system,
the composition of the giant planet atmospheres (hydrogen dominated with CH4 ,
NH3 and other hydrogenised species) is consistent with (16) and (17). By contrast,
Table 2 Hot and warm Jupiters with V ∗ < 13 (A = 0.03)
Planet MP (MJup ) RP (RJup ) dP (g/cm3 ) D (AU) MV ∗ R ∗ (Rsol ) T ∗ (K) TP (K) Vesc (km/s) μc Comment
HD209459b 0.714 1.380 0.361 0.0475 7.65 1.146 6075 1702 42.8 0.6 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Observed: CH4 , H2 O, CO2
Temperature inversion obs.
Inflated radius?
HD189733b 1.138 1.178 0.926 0.0314 7.67 0.788 4980 1422 58.5 0.3 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Observed: CH4 , H2 O, CO2
No temperature inversion obs.
HD149026b 0.356 0.718 1.279 0.0429 8.15 1.497 6147 2071 41.9 0.7 Hot small, CO, N2 expected
Large day-night contrasts obs.
HD171156b 3.191 1.095 3.232 0.1623 8.17 1.508 6079 1056 101.5 0.1 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-33b 4.590 1.438 2.053 0.0256 8.30 1.444 7400 3170 106.3 0.2 Very hot
Heavy-element rich?
HAT-P-2b 8.740 0.951 13.51 0.0674 8.71 1.640 6290 1768 180.4 <0.1 Hot,very massive
Heavy-element rich?
HD80606b 3.940 0.921 6.708 0.4490 8.93 0.980 5645 475 123.1 <0.1 Temp./Warm Jupiter CH4 , NH3
expected
G. Tinetti et al.: Spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres in our Galaxy
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-18b 10.43 1.165 8.773 0.0205 9.30 1.230 6400 2828 178.0 <0.1 Very hot
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-38b 2.712 1.079 2.871 0.0755 9.42 1.365 6150 1491 94.3 0.1 Intermediate/
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-7b 0.960 1.330 0.543 0.0617 9.51 1.432 6400 1758 50.5 0.4 Hot, CO, N2 expected
HAT-P-22b 2.147 1.080 0.275 0.0414 9.73 1.040 5302 1265 59.5 0.2 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Inflated radius?
WASP-14b 7.725 1.259 5.148 0.0370 9.75 1.297 6475 2186 147.4 <0.1 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
Page 21 of 65
Table 2 (Continued)
Page 22 of 65
XO-3b 11.79 1.217 8.699 0.0454 9.80 1.377 6429 2019 185.2 <0.1 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-8b 2.244 1.038 2.669 0.0801 9.90 0.953 5600 1101 87.5 <0.1 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
HAT-P-14b 2.200 1.200 1.693 0.0594 9.98 1.468 6600 1946 80.6 0.2 Hot, CO, N2 expected
HAT-P-1b 0.524 1.217 0.387 0.0553 10.40 1.115 5975 1529 39.0 0.6 Intermediate/
Inflated radius?
WASP-34b 0.590 1.220 0.432 0.0524 10.40 0.930 5700 1369 41.4 0.5 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Inflated radius?
Inflated radius?
Large day-night contrasts
HAT-P-17b 0.530 1.010 0.684 0.0882 10.54 0.837 5246 921 43.1 0.3 Warm Jupiter, CH4 , NH3 exp.
XO-4b 1.720 1.340 0.951 0.0555 10.70 1.550 5700 1717 67.4 0.2 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
Inflated radius?
Atomic H stable?
Inflated radius?
Table 2 (Continued)
XO-2b 0.570 0.973 0.823 0.0369 11.18 0.964 5340 1556 45.5 0.5 Intermediate/
Large day-night contrasts obs.
XO-1b 0.900 1.184 0.721 0.0488 11.30 0.928 5770 1434 29.4 1.4 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Atomic H not stable
Atomic H stable?
Inflated radius?
WASP-29b 0.244 0.792 0.653 0.0457 11.30 0.846 4800 1177 33.0 0.7 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Heavy-element rich?
HAT-P-20b 7.246 0.867 14.79 0.0361 11.34 0.684 4595 1149 172.0 <0.1 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Very dense object/Heavy elements?
TrES-2 1.253 1.169 1.043 0.0356 11.41 1.000 5850 1769 61.6 0.3
Hot, CO, N2 expected

HAT-P-21b 4.063 1.024 5.033 0.0494 11.46 1.105 5588 1507 118.5 <0.1 Intermediate/
TrES-4 0.917 1.706 0.246 0.0508 11.59 1.798 6200 2102 43.6 0.7 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Large dayside contrasts obs.
Inflated radius?
Inflated radius?
Atomic H not stable
Inflated radius?
Page 23 of 65
Table 2 (Continued)
Page 24 of 65
WASP-41b 0.920 1.210 0.691 0.040 11.60 1.010 5450 1561 51.9 0.4 Intermediate /
WASP-12b 1.404 1.736 0.357 0.0229 11.69 1.599 6300 2999 53.5 0.6 Very hot, CO, N2 expected
Mg++ detected
Inflated radius?
Inflated radius?
Atomic H stable?
TrES-1 0.761 1.099 0.763 0.0393 11.79 0.850 5100 1352 49.5 0.3 Hot, CH4 , N2 expected
Low day-night contrasts obs.
Inflated radius?
HAT-P-3b 0.591 0.827 1.390 0.0387 11.86 0.799 5185 1344 50.3 0.3 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
WASP-11b 0.460 1.045 0.536 0.0439 11.89 0.810 4980 1220 39.5 0.5 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Inflated radius?
HAT-P-29b 0.778 1.107 0.763 0.0667 11.90 1.224 6087 1487 49.9 0.4 Intermediate /
HAT-P-23b 2.090 1.368 1.086 0.0232 11.94 1.203 5905 2424 73.5 0.3 Very hot, CO, N2 expected
WASP-45b 1.007 1.160 0.858 0.0405 12.00 0.945 5140 1415 55.4 0.3 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
WASP-39b 0.280 1.270 0.182 0.0486 12.11 0.895 5400 1321 27.9 1.0 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
XO-5b 1.077 1.030 1.311 0.0487 12.13 1.060 5510 1466 60.8 0.2 Intermediate /
Table 2 (Continued)
HAT-P-15b 1.946 1.072 2.101 0.0964 12.16 1.080 5568 1062 80.2 0.1 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Heavy-element rich?
HAT-P-27b 0.660 1.055 0.748 0.0403 12.21 0.898 5300 1426 47.1 0.4 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
WASP-6b 0.503 1.224 0.365 0.0421 12.40 0.870 5450 1412 38.1 0.6 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Inflated radius?
TrES-3 1.910 1.305 1.143 0.0226 12.40 0.813 5720 1956 72.0 0.2 Hot, CO, N2 expected
Heavy-element rich?
CoRoT-2b 3.310 1.465 1.400 0.0281 12.57 0.902 5625 1817 89.4 0.1 Hot, CO, N2 expected
WASP-10b 3.06 1.080 3.231 0.0371 12.70 0.783 4675 1224 100.1 <0.1 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Heavy-element rich?
WASP-23b 0.884 0.962 1.321 0.0376 12.70 0.765 5150 1324 57.0 0.2
Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.

HAT-P-18b 0.197 0.995 0.266 0.0559 12.76 0.749 4803 1002 26.5 0.9 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Inflated radius?
HAT-P-12b 0.211 0.959 0.318 0.0384 12.84 0.700 4650 1132 27.9 0.9 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Inflated radius?
Qatar-1b 1.090 1.164 0.919 0.0234 12.84 0.823 4861 1642 57.6 0.3 Hot, CO, N2 exp.
HAT-P)19b 0.292 1.132 0.268 0.0466 12.90 0.820 4990 1193 30.2 0.8 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Inflated radius?
WASP-46b 2.101 1.310 1.243 0.0245 12.90 0.917 5620 1961 75.3 0.2 Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.
Page 25 of 65
Page 26 of 65
Table 3 Hot and warm Neptunes with V ∗ < 13 (A = 0.03)
Planet MP (MJup ) RP (RJup ) dP (g/cm3 ) D (AU) MV ∗ R ∗ (Rsol ) T ∗ (Tsol ) TP (K) Vesc (km/s) μc Comment
HAT-P-11b 0.081 0.452 1.167 0.0530 9.59 0.750 4780 1025 25.2 1.0 Hot Neptune, CH4 , NH3 expected
GJ 436b 0.074 0.365 2.024 0.0289 10.68 0.464 3864 842 26.8 0.7 Warm/hot Neptune, CH4 , NH3 expected
Low day-night contrasts obs.
Kepler-10c 0.063 0.199 10.632 0.2407 10.96 1.056 5627 671 33.5 0.3 Warm Neptune, CH4 , NH3 exp.
Very dense object
HAT-P-26b 0.059 0.565 0.485 0.0479 11.74 0.788 5090 1174 19.6 1.9 Hot Neptune, CH4, N2 expected
Atomic H unstable, H2 stable ?
Kepler-19b 0.064 0.198 10.966 0.1180 12.0 0.850 5541 848 33.8 0.5 Warm/hot Neptune, CH4 , NH3 expected
Very dense object
Kepler-4b 0.077 0.357 2.251 0.0456 12.7 1.487 5857 1906 27.6 1.6 Very hot Neptune, CO, N2 exp.
Atomic H unstable
Table 4 Hot and warm small Exos with V ∗ < 15 (A = 0.3)
Planet MP (MJup ) RP (RJup ) dP (g/cm3 ) D (AU) MV ∗ R ∗ (Rsol ) T ∗ (Tsol ) TP (K) Vesc (km/s) μc Comment
Kepler-10b 0.014 0.127 9.090 0.0168 11.0 1.056 5627 2341 19.7 3.7 Very hot rocky, very dense object
Si/Mg gaseous/liquid?
H and H2 unstable, He stable?
CoRoT-7b 0.015 0.150 5.911 0.0172 11.7 0.870 5275 1971 18.8 3.4 Very hot rocky planet
Lava-ocean planet?
H2 unstable, He stable?
55CnCe 0.027 0.190 5.235 0.0156 5.95 0.943 5196 2122 22.4 2.6 Very hot rocky
Si/Mg gaseous/liquid?
H and H2 unstable
GJ 1214b 0.020 0.245 1.809 0.0140 14.7 0.210 2949 600 17.0 1.3 Warm ocean/rocky
Atomic H unstable
Page 27 of 65
Mars’ and Venus’ atmospheres are predominantly made of CO, CO2 and N2 , as hy-
drogen escaped due to their relatively low gravity field. H2 O is expected to be present,
and is indeed observed, in the interior of the giant planets; its presence on terrestrial
planets may be explained, at least partially, by an external origin, i.e. cometary and
meteoritic impacts.
The equilibrium reactions (16) and (17) can be used to predict the expected at-
mospheric composition of hot and warm Jupiters and Neptunes. Thermochemical
equilibrium models of hot Jupiters around solar-type stars predict CO and N2 within
∼0.05 AU from the star, while CH4 and N2 should prevail between ∼0.05 and
0.10 AU. CH4 and NH3 are expected to be the dominant species beyond ∼0.10 AU
(Burrows and Sharp 1999; Goukenleuque et al. 2000). A comparison between these
predictions and the observations shows a departure in the atmospheric composition of
hot Jupiters from thermochemical equilibrium. For example, methane may be present
on both HD209458b and HD189733b, while carbon, according to thermochemical
equilibrium, is expected to be in the form of CO or CO2 . This discrepancy illustrates
the need to take into account other mechanisms.
An important process to consider is transport-induced quenching of disequilib-
rium species. The quenching effect takes place when a species present in the deep
atmosphere is transported upward in a timescale shorter than its chemical destruc-
tion timescale. The disequilibrium species are then “quenched” at atmospheric levels
which can be reached by observations (Prinn and Barshay 1977). In the Solar System,
this is the case of CO in the giant planets, as well as PH3 and GeH4 on Jupiter and
Saturn (Encrenaz et al. 2004).
Another key process, which also leads to the production of disequilibrium species,
is photochemistry (Yung and DeMore 1999). The energy delivered by the absorption
of stellar UV radiation can break chemical bonds and lead to the formation of new
species. In the solar system, the photochemistry of methane is responsible for the
presence of numerous hydrocarbons in the giant planets; in Titan’s atmosphere, the
dissociation of CH4 and N2 leads to the formation of hydrocarbons and nitriles. In
the case of highly irradiated hot Jupiters, these disequilibrium species are expected
to be important (Liang et al. 2003, 2004; Zahnle et al. 2009; Line et al. 2010).
A third mechanism to be considered is a possible exogenic contribution. In the case
of the Solar System, oxygen species (H2 O, CO, CO2 ) are present in the giant planets’
stratospheres, probably injected—at least partly—by a micrometeoritic interplanetary
flux. In other planetary systems, the atmospheric contamination could originate from
the interplanetary medium or from asteroid belts.
Examples of atmospheric modelling, including transport-induced quenching and
photochemistry, have been developed by Moses et al. (2011) and Venot et al. (2012)
for HD209458b and HD189733b. For both planets, CH4 and NH3 are enhanced with
respect to their equilibrium abundances due to vertical transport-induced quenching,
but are dissociated by photochemistry at higher altitude, leading, in particular, to
the formation of C2 H2 and HCN. The relative importance of thermochemical equi-
librium, photochemistry, and transport-induced quenching in controlling the atmo-
spheric composition largely depends on the thermal structure of the planets. In the
case of the hotter HD209458b, deviations from the equilibrium are less noticeable
than for HD189733b (Moses et al. 2011; Venot et al. 2012).
Regarding the thermal structure, an important factor is the opacity associated with
condensates and photochemical hazes. Candidate species for condensation at the hot
temperatures are silicates, iron (Lunine et al. 1989; Ackerman and Marley 2001),
or more exotic species present in brown dwarfs, such as TiO, VO, metal hydrides
(Lodders 2003; Sharp and Burrows 2007). Other proposed hazes are soots (Zahnle
et al. 2010; Mousis et al. 2011) or sulphur compounds (Zahnle et al. 2009). Thermo-
chemical calculations indicate that SiO should be the dominant silicon-bearing gas
on HD209458b (Visscher et al. 2010). According to Koskinen et al. (2012), though
the detection of Si2+ in the upper atmosphere by Linsky et al. (2010) implies that the
formation of silicon clouds in the lower atmosphere is suppressed.
As in the case of Titan or the giant planets in our Solar System, haze opacities
may warm up the atmospheric layer where they absorb the stellar photons and induce
the formation of a stratosphere. Vertical temperature inversion has been proposed by
Burrows et al. (2007) and then by other teams (Swain et al. 2009a, 2009b; Madhusud-
han and Seager 2009; Lee et al. 2012) to explain the available data for HD209458b.
However, data at higher spectral resolution are needed to confirm this interpretation.
Thermal inversions have been proposed for other planets, for which only a hand-
ful of secondary eclipse, IR, photometric data points are available. In these other
cases, the claims are unsupported by the observations, which allow for a large num-
ber of degenerate solutions. Fortney et al. (2008) have proposed that hot Jupiters
should be divided in two subclasses, the cooler pL class and the hotter pM class,
characterised by the condensation—or not—of TiO and VO in the exoplanet atmo-
sphere and the presence—or not—of a thermal inversion. Given the list of conden-
sates and photochemical hazes mentioned above, this classification appears though as
an oversimplification of the reality. Spiegel et al. (2009) used a radiative-convective
radiative-transfer model and a model of particle settling in the presence of turbulent
and molecular diffusion to address this question. They concluded that it is unlikely
that VO could play a critical role in producing thermal inversions, while macroscopic
mixing is essential to the TiO hypothesis; without macroscopic mixing, such a heavy
species cannot persist in a planet’s upper atmosphere.
Table 2 lists the transiting hot Jupiters observable on the basis of their host star’s
brightness. Their possible atmospheric composition is predicted through simple ther-
mochemical calculations based on the planetary equilibrium temperature. Obviously,
hydrogen is present in all cases, and water is likely to be there as well. The density
of the exoplanet can be used as diagnostic of possible inflation or, in contrast, as an
indicator of a heavy-element rich interior. For the two hot Jupiters already observed
spectroscopically (HD209458b and HD189733b), a comparison is made between the
expected and observed compositions. Table 3 gives the same information for transit-
ing hot Neptunes.
3.4 Hot and warm small Exos
An increasing number of rocky, very hot objects orbiting very close to their host star
are being discovered: CoRoT-7b (Léger et al. 2009), Kepler-10b (Batalha et al. 2011),
55 Cnc b (Winn et al. 2011). We have no information about their composition, but
models suggest that they could exhibit silicate compounds in the gaseous/liquid phase
(Léger et al. 2011, Valencia et al. 2010; Rouan et al. 2011). At lower temperatures
(700–1000 K), as in the case of Kepler 11b, f (Lissauer et al. 2011) and Kepler 20b,
c, e, f (Gautier et al. 2012), silicates do not evaporate.
At the frontier between warm small Exos and warm Neptunes, the concept of
ocean planets has been proposed by Léger et al. (2004) and Sotin et al. (2007). Such
objects would include a metallic core surrounded with a silicate mantle, but also a
significant amount of liquid water and a warm water vapour atmosphere. The equilib-
rium temperature would range between the triple and critical temperatures of water,
i.e. between 273 and 647 K. This range includes the equilibrium temperature of warm
objects like Gl 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009).
3.5 Temperate and cold Jupiters and Neptunes
This is the domain of Solar System giant planets. They all have a similar composition
dominated by H2 , CH4 and its dissociation products, NH3 and other hydrogenated
species. On Uranus and Neptune, all minor species are condensed except for methane
and its photodissociation products. The presence of CH4 may indicate the presence
of a stratosphere and a temperature inversion. We discuss here a few interesting ex-
amples of transiting gaseous planets in this temperature range.
The temperate Jupiter CoRoT-9b transits around a G3V star of magnitude V =
13.7 at a distance of 0.4 AU: its equilibrium temperature should range between 250
and 430 K (Deeg et al. 2010).
In the Kepler-11 system of stellar magnitude V = 13.7, Kepler-11g, at a distance
of 0.25 AU from its star, should have an equilibrium temperature in the range 350–
400 K, i.e. close to temperate. Kepler-22b, a transiting object with a 2.4 Earth radii,
has been discovered around a solar-type star with magnitude V = 12, at 0.85 AU
(Borucki et al. 2012). Only upper limits of its mass have been derived but the size
suggests a small Neptune. However, its equilibrium temperature, assuming a fast-
rotating object and an albedo of 0.3, is ∼260 K, i.e. a temperate object (see Sect. 6).
Temperate Neptunes are of special interest, as their density is not sufficient to
discriminate between gaseous and ocean/icy planets. Primary transits observations
may, in principle, be used to separate hydrogen-rich from water-rich or nitrogen-rich
atmospheres (Ehrenreich et al. 2006; Miller-Ricci et al. 2009).
3.6 Temperate and cold small Exos
In the Solar System, we find two classes of small bodies surrounded with an atmo-
sphere: (1) the rocky (Mars-type) planets, small and formed within the snow line in
the protosolar disc; (2) the icy (Titan-type) planets, small objects formed beyond the
snow line. By analogy, we can define two classes of small Exos, the rocky small Exos,
formed within the snow line, and the icy small Exos, formed beyond this limit.
As mentioned above, assuming thermochemical equilibrium in the protosolar disc
(Prinn and Barshay 1977; Lewis 1995), carbon and nitrogen are expected to evolve
from CO and N2 at higher temperatures and lower pressures (as we find in the terres-
trial planets) to CH4 and NH3 at lower temperatures and higher pressures (as we find
in the gas giants). Water may be present in all kinds of planets, in gaseous, liquid or
ice form, depending on the temperature. In the case of rocky planets, water vapour
has a tendency to escape, as illustrated by the atmospheric evolutions of Mars and
Venus. In the terrestrial planets, CO reacts with H2 O to form CO2 . The rocky planets
have an atmosphere dominated by CO2 and N2 ; their low gravity field leads to H2
escape. The Earth is an exception, with the conversion of CO2 in the water oceans
as CaCO3 and the large abundance of O2 (and its photodissociation product O3 ) as
a consequence of the apparition of life. There is no stratosphere on Mars and Venus,
hence no temperature inversion. On Earth, a stratosphere is present as a result of the
ozone layer.
The above classification seems to imply that Venus and Mars have similar atmo-
spheric structures; in fact, only their global atmospheric compositions, with mostly
CO2 and a few percent of N2 , are similar. The surface pressures and temperatures
are very different, as a result of their different initial masses and evolutions. At the
inner edge of the solar-system habitable zone (see Sect. 6), Venus lost its initial water
as a result of the increasing solar heating, and the presence of gaseous CO2 in mas-
sive abundances, which led to a huge runaway greenhouse effect. With its surface
temperature of 730 K and its surface pressure of 90 bars, the atmosphere of Venus,
covered with a blanket of H2 SO4 clouds, looks quite different from the Martian one.
The latter is characterised by a mean surface pressure and temperature of 0.06 mbar
and 230 K, respectively. From a spectroscopic point of view, Venus shows another
specificity: as a result of its high surface temperature, thermal emission is detectable
in the near-infrared range in some atmospheric windows outside the CO2 absorption
bands. In theory, such emission could be detected on a Venus-type exoplanet with
eclipse measurements. However, the signal level in the most favourable window at
2.3 μm is only about a thousandth of the reflected sunlight component (Titov et al.
2007), well beyond the present sensitivity capabilities of transit spectroscopy.
Several temperate small Exos have already been discovered (Mayor et al. 2009;
Pepe et al. 2011; Anglada-Escudé et al. 2012), but no one transiting. An interesting
planet is GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009), a planet of 6 terrestrial masses tran-
siting at 0.014 AU from its M-type star (MV = 14.7; see Sect. 3.2). Its equilibrium
temperature should range between 393 and 555 K or could be somewhat higher if the
planet is phase-locked with its star, as expected at this distance.
The solar-system analogues of cold small Exos are the Titan-like objects (Titan,
Triton, Pluto). Molecular nitrogen and methane, with their dissociation products, are
found in their atmospheres, with N2 being possibly a result of NH3 photodissociation
(Atreya et al. 2010). A stratosphere is present as a result of CH4 and N2 dissociations,
and hydrocarbons and nitriles are expected to be found in emission (Coustenis and
Taylor 1999).
Cold small Exos around late-type stars, such as OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb
(Beaulieu et al. 2006) have been discovered by microlensing techniques. Given the
relatively cold host star and distance star-planet, these objects are expected to be en-
tirely frozen. Their internal structure could thus show some analogy with the outer
satellites or the trans-neptunian objects (see e.g. Encrenaz et al. 2004).
Figure 8 summarises the current exoplanets’ classification as a function of the
planet’s mass and its stellar irradiation, expressed as a function of its normalised
distance DN to the star. If D is the distance of the planet to the star, DN is the
Fig. 8 A simple classification for the atmospheric composition of exoplanets, based on their mass and
their effective temperature. As explained in the text, in this simplified view critical dynamical events, such
as migration and impacts, and other important physical–chemical mechanisms, such as transport-induced
quenching of disequilibrium species and photochemistry, are not accounted for. Spectroscopic observations
of exoplanet atmospheres will inform us about the departure from this static description in thermochemical
equilibrium (Encrenaz 2010)
distance from the Sun where the planet would receive the same flux:

DN = DR ∗ T ∗ /5770
2
(18)
where R ∗ is expressed in solar radii.

In Fig. 8, Jupiters and Neptunes all appear in the category of giant exoplanets,
because their expected atmospheric composition does not depend on their mass.
We stress that this simple classification has several limitations as thermochemical
equilibrium is assumed and we have seen that other processes—vertical transport and
photochemistry—may induce significant changes in the atmospheric composition and
structure. Secondly, migration effects are not taken into account. This means that, if
migration takes place, the timescale to reach thermochemical equilibrium needs to be
shorter than the migration timescale. In addition, there are other planetary parameters
which may influence the radiative balance between the stellar flux and the planetary
emission: e.g. the obliquity and the eccentricity of the orbit, the rotation period of
the planet, the value of the albedo, a possible greenhouse effect, a possible internal
energy source, . . . . The only purpose of this classification is to provide an idealised
case to be compared against the experiment, so we can evaluate the departure of the
real case from the equilibrium, thermochemical calculations.
4 Formation mechanisms and atmospheric composition
Two different scenarios are currently being debated in the planetary community to ex-
plain the process of formation of gaseous planets: the core accretion model (Safronov
1969; Goldreich and Ward 1973; Pollack et al. 1996) and the gravitational instability
model (Cameron 1978; Boss 1997).
The former involves bottom-up growth of planetesimals until a critical mass of
∼5–15M⊕ is reached; the further accretion of a gaseous envelope onto the planetary
core will lead to the formation of Neptunes or giant planets (Alibert et al. 2005;
Hubickyi et al. 2005; Mordasini et al. 2009). All these models predict a large amount
of heavy elements to explain the supersolar metallicities observed in the giant planets
(Owen et al. 1999; Gautier et al. 2000; Saumon and Guillot 2004; Alibert et al. 2005;
Owen and Encrenaz 2006; Mousis et al. 2006, 2009b).
The gravitational instability model is based on the same physical mechanisms as
invoked to explain the formation of stars: in this scenario gas giant protoplanets need
to form rapidly, before the gas in the protoplanetary disc is dissipated (Boss 1997,
2005). As a result, the metallicity of the gaseous planets should be slightly higher
than or equal to that of the parent star (Helled and Bodenheimer 2012).
According to these two formation scenarios, the giant planets’ metallicities should
be either equal to/slightly higher than that of the parent star (gravitational instabil-
ity) or significantly higher (core accretion). None of these models predict sub-stellar
metallicity.
Unfortunately this information is not available yet for exoplanets. As explained
in Sect. 2.2, the degeneracy of solutions embedded in the current transit observations
should caution against any attempt to estimate the metallicities. In particular, depend-
ing on the data lists used, observed spectra of transiting hot Jupiters may suggest that
carbon and oxygen abundances range from depleted to enriched with respect to the
star. In the next decade, with improved instruments and observatories (see Sect. 7) we
should be able to estimate more accurately gaseous planets’ metallicities and use this
information as a diagnostic test for planet formation scenarios. While this approach
is very promising, some caution is needed. Mousis et al. (2009a, 2009b, 2011), in
fact, have indicated several scenarios which could produce a sub-stellar metallicity
in the atmosphere of hot-Jupiters, despite heavy elements being abundant in their
interior. In particular they have pointed out that the sequestration of carbon in the
form of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and soots in the atmosphere could cause
sub-stellar elemental abundances.
5 Planetary spectroscopy
An (exo)planetary spectrum shows two main components:

– the reflected/scattered stellar flux which peaks in the UV, visible or near-infrared
range, depending on the spectral type of the host star
– the thermal emission which dominates at longer wavelengths (Fig. 9)
Fig. 9 Blackbody curves corresponding to different temperatures: the colder the temperature, the longer
the wavelengths were the Planckians peak
In the first case, molecular signatures appear in absorption in front of the stellar back-
ground. On the contrary, in the thermal regime, the emitted flux refers to the temper-
ature of the emitting layer, i.e. the atmospheric level where the optical depth is equal
to 1. If the thermal profile decreases monotonically as the altitude increases (as in the
case of Mars and Venus), molecular signatures appear in absorption. If a temperature
inversion is present, i.e. if the exoplanet exhibits a stratosphere (as in the case of the
Earth, giant planets and Titan), the molecular features may appear in emission or in
absorption, depending on the atmospheric level where the lines are formed (see e.g.
Encrenaz et al. 2004). Because we have no a priori information about the thermal
profile of the exoplanet atmosphere, it is important to identify the wavelength range
where each component (reflected or thermal) dominates.
5.1 Reflected/scattered stellar component and thermal emission
Figure 10a shows the two components (in the form of blackbody curves) for an ex-
oplanet at various distances from a solar-type star, assuming an albedo of 0.3. If an
albedo of 0.03 is chosen, the equilibrium temperatures are increased by about 10 %
(see Table 1) and the curves of the thermal emission are slightly shifted toward shorter
wavelengths. For a hot Jupiter located at 0.05 AU, the thermal emission dominates
all wavelengths above 1.7 μm. At 1 AU, both components contribute equally around
5 μm. Note that in the case of the Earth, the actual temperature is 33 K warmer due
to the greenhouse effect, and the crossover between the two components is shifted to
4 μm.
Figures 10b and 10c show the same plots for F-type and M-type stars, respectively.
In the M star case, the reflected and thermal components are balanced at about 5 μm,
7 μm and 14 μm for distances of 0.05, 0.1 AU and 1 AU, respectively. Figures 11
and 12 show the same plots in a few specific cases: very hot objects (HAT-P-7b and
CoRoT-1b), hot objects (HD209458b and HD189733b) and warm objects (GJ 436b
Fig. 10a Reflected and thermal

components in the case of a
solar-type star
Fig. 10b Reflected and thermal

F-type star
Fig. 10c Reflected and thermal

M-type star
and GJ 1214b). The crossover between the reflected and thermal components lies
between 0.5 and 1 μm for very hot objects, between 1.0 and 1.5 μm for hot Jupiters
and between 1.5 and 4 μm for warm objects.
Fig. 11 Reflected and thermal

components for two sets of hot
Jupiters: HAT-P-7b and
CoRoT-1b (very hot objects,
left) and HD209458b and
HD189733b (most observed
targets, right)
5.2 Which spectral range is best suited?
– Both the reflected and the thermal components show advantages and limitations.
In the reflected component, the identification is easier (as all features appear in
absorption) but no information can be extracted on the vertical distributions of
species, or on temperature. In the thermal regime, one needs to retrieve simultane-
ously the thermal profile and the vertical profiles of the atmospheric species. Com-
bining the analysis of both components, whenever feasible, will be of great help
for characterising the atmosphere. This implies a spectral interval ranging from
∼0.4 μm (to include the maximum of the reflected flux of F-type stars) to 16 μm
(to include the maximum emission of temperate objects around M-type stars). The
planetary albedo and the surface properties can be measured only through the re-
flected component.
– Remote sensing of solar-system planetary atmospheres has demonstrated the im-
portance of analysing, for a given species, multiple bands with different intensi-
ties. Redundancy may help resolving the ambiguities. Moreover, in the thermal
regime, such bands probe different atmospheric levels, with the strongest ones be-
ing formed in the upper levels. Thanks to this information, the vertical structure
Fig. 12 Reflected and thermal

components for two warm
objects: GJ 436b and GJ 1214b.
Calculations are made for two
values of the albedo, a = 0.3
and a = 0.03
of the atmosphere can be retrieved. This translates into the need of a wide spectral
coverage for the thermal component.
– For temperate planets, the maximum of the emission peaks beyond 5 μm. It is
therefore mandatory to extend the spectroscopic observations toward the mid-
infrared to characterise these objects. The case of M stars is of special interest:
these stars represent about 90 % of the total stellar population and given their
smaller size compared to other main sequence stars, they are more favourable for
transit observations.
5.3 Main molecular bands and constraints on the resolving power
5.3.1 The 2–18 μm range
We first consider wavelengths longer than 2 μm, which are best suited for several
reasons: (1) spectral signatures are stronger because all molecules have their funda-
mental vibration–rotation bands in this range; (2) as mentioned above (Sect. 5.1), the
planet to star flux ratio increases at longer wavelengths; (3) at wavelengths shorter
than 2 μm, spectroscopic data for molecules—overtone and combination bands—are
much less well known, especially at high temperature (see Sects. 5.3.2 and 5.3.5).
Table 5 Main molecular signatures and constraints on the spectral resolving power. ν is the spectral
interval between two adjacent J-components of a band. Smax is the intensity of the strongest band available
in the spectral interval. R is the spectral resolving power required to separate two adjacent J-components
( ν). Rotational constants, bands assignments and intensities are taken from Herzberg (1968), Townes
and Schawlow (1975), Pugh and Rao (1976) and Rothman et al. (1983)
Molecule ν = 2B0 λ (Smax ) Smax R λ (Smax ) Smax R

cm−1 2–5 μm cm−2 am−1 2–5 μm 5–16 μm cm−2 am−1 5–16 μm
H2 O 29.0 2.69 (ν1 , ν3 ) 200 130 6.27 (ν2 ) 250 55

HDO 18.2 3.67 (ν1 , 2ν2 ) 270 150 7.13 (ν2 ) 77
CH4 10.0 3.31 (ν3 ) 300 300 7.66 (ν4 ) 140 130
CH3 D 7.8 4.54 (ν2 ) 25 280 8.66 (ν6 ) 119 150
NH3 20.0 2.90 (ν3 ) 13 170 10.33 600 50
3.00 (ν1 ) 20 10.72 (ν2 )
PH3 8.9 4.30 (ν1 , ν3 ) 520 260 8.94 (ν4 ) 102 126
10.08 (ν2 ) 82 110
CO 3.8 4.67 (1-0) 241 565
CO2 1.6 4.25 (ν1 ) 4100 1470 14.99 (ν2 ) 220 420
HCN 3.0 3.02 (ν3 ) 240 1100 14.04 (ν2 ) 204 240
C2 H2 2.3 3.03 (ν3 ) 105 1435 13.7 (ν5 ) 582 320
C2 H6 1.3 3.35 (ν7 ) 538 2300 12.16 (ν12 ) 36 635
O3 0.9 9.60 (ν3 ) 348 1160
Table 5 shows a list of strong infrared bands in the 2–18 μm range for a series of
possible candidate species. The first ones to be considered are H2 O, CH4 , NH3 , CO
and CO2 . Figure 13 shows the strong effect of temperature on the shape of molecular
bands (here H2 O and NH3 ). For completion, we also consider C2 H2 and C2 H6 , the
two main products of methane photodissociation, observed in the solar-system giant
planets, PH3 (observed in Jupiter and Saturn), HCN (detected on Neptune) and O3
(observed on Earth). Many weaker bands of all these species are also present, espe-
cially below 5 μm. Figure 14 shows a synthetic absorption spectrum of the five major
species (H2 O, CH4 , NH3 , CO, CO2 ) calculated under the same conditions (P = 1 bar,
column density = 10 cm-amagat). For comparison, [H2 ] = 30 km-amagat on Jupiter,
[CH4 ] = 50 m-amagat on Jupiter and [CO2 ] = 100 m-amagat on Mars. Two temper-
atures are considered: T = 300 K (temperate planets) and T = 1200 K (hot planets).
Figure 15 shows spectra of minor species, such as HCN, C2 H2 , C2 H6 , O3 , also at
300 K and 1200 K.
Most molecules exhibit two or more strong molecular bands in the 2–16 μm range,
so both redundancy and the ability to retrieve a vertical structure are guaranteed. The
second comment to be made is that spectral features are broadened at high tempera-
ture, due to the increasing contribution of high J-value components in each molecular
band. On one hand they are detectable at lower spectral resolution, but if multiple
molecular species overlap the identification becomes more difficult. For an unam-
biguous identification of a given molecule, the spectral resolving power should, ide-
ally, be sufficient to separate two adjacent J-components of this molecule (Fig. 16).
This interval is equal to 2B0 , where B0 is the rotational constant of the molecule.
Fig. 13 Calculated line

intensity for water vapour (top,
Barber et al. 2006) and ammonia
(bottom, Yurchenko et al. 2011)
as a function of wavelengths and
temperature. The figure shows
how molecular opacities change
in intensity and shape due to the
temperature. This effect needs to
be accounted for in spectral
simulations
Table 5 lists this interval ν for the main bands of our list of candidate species, and
the resolving power required to resolve this interval.
Two spectral domains are considered, the 2–5 μm and the 5–16 μm range. The
molecular features, in fact, become stronger and less packed at wavelengths longer
than 5 μm. The spectral separation of molecular bands above 5 μm is easier than
at shorter wavelengths, because the overlap is less severe. We can see that for H2 O,
CH4 and their isotopes, as well as for NH3 and PH3 , a resolving power of 300 (below
5 μm) and 150 (above 5 μm) is sufficient for identifying the bands unambiguously at
any temperature.
Figure 17 shows the transmission of H2 O, CO2 , CH4 and NH3 between 5 and
18 μm, for a spectral resolution of 33 cm−1 , which corresponds to a resolving power
of 20 at 16 μm, 30 at 10 μm and 60 at 5 μm. We appreciate that it is still possible to
identify the main species through their general shapes, even at high temperature.
5.3.2 The 1–2 μm range
For temperate and warm objects, the 1–2 μm range is important to measure the re-
flected or scattered starlight of temperate objects. While many transit spectra of hot
Jupiters have been observed in this spectral range using HST/NICMOS, HST/WFC3
Fig. 14 Transmission of main candidate molecules (H2 O, CO2 , CO, CH4 , NH3 ) between 2 and 18 μm.
Calculations use a line-by-line model with, for each gas, a pressure of 1 atm and a column density of
10 cm-amagat. Top: T = 300 K; bottom: T = 1200 K. The spectral resolution is 10 cm−1 , which corre-
sponds to a resolving power of 67 at 16 μm, 100 at 10 μm and 500 at 2 μm. The spectroscopic parameters
are taken from the GEISA data base (Jacquinet-Husson et al. 2011)
and ground-based facilities, modelling exoplanetary spectra in this spectral range is

complicated by the complexity of the molecular signatures. Many weak bands (typi-
cally overtone and combination bands) are present between 1 and 2 μm. Their spec-
troscopic identification is not complete, and the calculation of the opacities at high
temperature is much more uncertain than at longer wavelengths.
Figure 18 shows a synthetic absorption spectrum of H2 O, CH4 , NH3 , CO2 , HCN
and C2 H2 calculated between 1 and 2 μm under the same conditions as in the 2–
16 μm range (P = 1 bar, column density = 10 cm-amagat; Fig. 14). The CO ab-
sorption (present in the (3-0) band at 1.57 μm is negligible at this scale. The spec-
tral resolution (25 cm−1 ) is adjusted to give a mean resolving power of 300, as in
Fig. 13. Comparison of Figs. 14 and 18 illustrate that molecular absorptions are sig-
nificantly weaker below 2 μm, and that detecting molecular species at longer wave-
lengths should be easier.
It should be emphasised that many molecular transitions are still missing in
databases such as GEISA or HITRAN, especially in this wavelength interval. This
issue is discussed in Sect. 5.3.5.
Fig. 15 Transmission of minor species (HCN, C2 H2 , C2 H6 , O3 ) between 2 and 18 μm. The column
density is 1 cm-amagat for each molecule. Top: T = 300 K; bottom: T = 1200 K. The pressure is 1 atm.
The spectral resolution is 10 cm −1
5.3.3 The visible range
For hot planets, opacities in the visible range are dominated by metallic resonance
lines (Na at 0.59 μm, K at 0.77 μm, and weaker Cs transitions at 0.85 and 0.89 μm).
Theoretical calculations of absorption profiles of Na and K perturbed by H2 and He
at high temperatures have been performed by Allard et al. (2003, 2012). Figure 19
shows a simulated visible spectrum of a gaseous, cloud-free exoplanet at spectral
resolution R ∼ 200. For cloud-free atmospheres, a resolving power of ∼100 is still
sufficient for identifying the resonance lines of Na and K, but not to resolve the centre
of the line.
In a cloud-free atmosphere, the continuum in the UV–VIS is given by Rayleigh
scattering on the blue side, i.e. for wavelengths shorter than 1 micron (Rayleigh scat-
tering varies as 1/λ4 ). If there are clouds or hazes with small-size particles, those
should be detectable in the visible. For small (particle diameter a λ), spherical
particles the multiple scattering with the stellar photons can be simulated using Mie
Fig. 16 Examples of synthetic spectra of H2 O, NH3 and CH4 in some of their fundamental bands, for
two temperatures (300 K and 1200 K). The spectral resolution is 10 cm−1 , corresponding to a resolving
power of 100 at 10 μm (NH3 ν2 band), 150 at 6 μm (H2 O ν2 band) and 300 around 3 μm (H2 O ν1 and ν3
bands, CH4 ν3 band). In all cases, the resolving power is sufficient to separate two adjacent J-components
in each band
scattering approximation (e.g. Goody and Yung 1989). If the particles are larger (par-
ticle diameter a ≥ λ) or non-spherical, then the calculations are more complex (Liou
2002). Apart from the particle size and shape, the other important parameters are
the particle distribution function and the pressure of the atmospheric layer where
clouds/hazes form. From a radiative-transfer perspective, the composition is less im-
portant (De Kok and Stam 2012), and this explains why it is exceedingly difficult to
retrieve clouds’ or hazes’ composition from remote sensing.
A key molecule absorbing in the visible range is molecular oxygen (Fig. 20, Pallé
et al. 2009). A spectral resolving higher than 100 is needed to detect these features
which are very narrow (see e.g. the A-band at 0.76 μm). In the Earth’s atmosphere the
oxygen abundance is so high that even its dimer, O4 , and collisions between O2 and
N2 are detectable in a disc-averaged spectrum (Tinetti et al. 2006a; Pallé et al. 2009).
In the spectrum of the Earth shown in Fig. 20, ions are also present: Ca II H and K
lines at 0.3934, 0.3968 μm, and the Ca II triplet at 0.8498, 0.8542 and 0.8662 μm.
Atomic species such as He I (Moutou et al. 2001, 2003), Ca (Bundy and Marcy
2000; Narita et al. 2005; Shkolnik et al. 2005) and Fe (Bundy and Marcy 2000; Narita
et al. 2005) have been sought in hot Jupiters atmospheres, but not yet detected in these
planets.
Fig. 17 Transmission of main candidate molecules (H2 O, CO2 , CO, CH4 , NH3 ) between 5 and 18 μm,
under the same conditions as in Figs. 7a, 7b. The spectral resolution is 33 cm−1 , which corresponds to a
resolving power of 20 at 16 μm, 30 at 10 μm and 60 at 5 μm. Top: T = 300 K; bottom: T = 1200 K. It
can be seen that the band shapes of all species remain separated even at high temperature (H2 O at 6.3 μm,
CH4 at 7.7 μm, NH3 at 10.5 μm, CO2 at 15.0 μm)
5.3.4 A modelling of an exoplanet transit spectrum between 1 and 16 μm
As a summary of the above discussion, Figs. 21a and 21b show models of the ex-
pected contributions of a large number of molecules to the transit spectrum of a
hot gaseous exoplanet between 1 and 16 μm (see equations in Sect. 2.1.1). The at-
mospheric temperature is assumed =800 K. Since we are interested in the relative
molecular contributions here, the atmospheric absorption is normalised to 1; typi-
cally the fraction of stellar flux absorbed by the atmosphere of a hot, gaseous planet is
10−4 –10−3 . In addition to the main candidate absorbers (H2 O, CH4 , NH3 , CO, CO2 ),
calculations include contributions from HCN, O3 , H2 S, PH3 , SO2 , C2 H2 , C2 H6 and
H+3 . In Fig. 21a, two values (300 and 30) are used for the spectral resolving power.
While R = 30 is OK to detect most of the molecules at λ > 5, especially at high tem-
peratures, we would lose the possibility to resolve the CO2 , HCN and other hydrocar-
bons Q-branches. In Fig. 21b (R = 300), it is worth noticing the possible signature
Fig. 18 Transmission of main

candidate molecules (H2 O,
CO2 , CH4 , NH3 , HCN, C2 H2 )
between 1 and 2 μm. Conditions
are the same as in Figs. 7a, 7b
(P = 1 bar, column density:
10 cm-atm). Top: T = 300 K;
bottom: T = 1200 K. The
spectral resolution is 25 cm−1 ,
which corresponds to a
resolving power of 200 at 2 μm,
300 at 1.67 μm and 400 at 1 μm.
The spectroscopic parameters
are taken from the GEISA data
base (Jacquinet-Husson et al.
2011). The data base is known
to be incomplete, especially in
the case of CH4 (see text)
Fig. 19 Synthetic transit spectra of a hot, gaseous exoplanet in the visible range, assuming a spectral res-
olution R ∼ 200. The resonance lines are Na at 0.59 μm and K at 0.77 μm (calculated cross sections from
Allard et al. 2003). Water vapour and methane spectral features are weaker here compared to the IR. We
used calculated BT2 line list for water at high temperature (Barber et al. 2006) and methane absorption co-
efficients from Karkoschka and Tomasko (2010). The slope of the continuum is due to Rayleigh scattering
by molecular hydrogen
Fig. 20 Earth’s transmission spectrum measured through lunar eclipse (Pallé et al. 2009). In the Earth’s
atmosphere the oxygen’s abundance is so high that even its dimer, O4 , and collisions between O2 and N2
are detectable. Ions are also present: Ca II at 0.3934, 0.3968 μm, H and K lines at 0.8498, 0.8542 and
0.8662 μm
of H+3 around 2 μm and 3–4 μm, easily detectable with a resolving power of ∼300.
The H+ 3 ion, which plays a critical role in the cooling and stabilising of gaseous plan-
ets’ atmospheres (Maillard and Miller, 2012), has been detected in the ionospheres
of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus (Drossart et al. 1989; Geballe et al. 1993; Trafton et al.
1993), and its presence could be reasonably expected in the upper atmospheres of
highly irradiated gaseous planets (Koskinen et al. 2007).
5.3.5 Status of current databases for hot temperatures
The modelling of planetary and exoplanetary atmospheres requires extensive opac-

ity databases. High-temperature spectroscopic data cannot be extrapolated from low
temperature atmospheric database such as the most currently used HITRAN (Roth-
man et al. 2013) and GEISA (Jacquinet-Husson et al. 2011). Such extrapolations
fail to reproduce high J rovibrational transitions and hot band transitions involv-
ing highly excited vibrational levels. The question of the opacity calculations at
high temperature is discussed, in particular, by Sharp and Burrows (2007), Tinetti
et al. (2012a) and Tennyson and Yurchenko (2012). Several databases already pro-
vide transitions line lists at high temperature (including positions and absorption
Fig. 21a Absorptions contributions from different molecules in the transmission spectrum of a hot,
gaseous exoplanet. Two values of the spectral resolving power are use: 300 (thin line) and 30 (thick line).
The dashed vertical lines indicate the positions of maximum absorption for the different molecules. We
used high temperature line lists BT2 (Barber et al. 2006) for water, BYTe (Yurchenko et al. 2011) for
ammonia, Neale et al. (1996) coefficients for H+3 and HITEMP (Rothman et al. 2010) for CO and CO2 .
The other molecules were simulated using HITRAN 2008 (Rothman et al. 2013) line list
cross sections) of a series of molecules of astrophysical and planetological rele-

vance (BT2 for water (Barber et al. 2006; Fig. 13), CDSD-4000 for CO2 (Tashkun
and Perevalov 2011), as well as some hot spectra for NH3 (Hargreaves et al. 2011;
Yurchenko et al. 2011; Zobov et al. 2011; Fig. 13), HCN (Harris et al. 2008;
Mellau 2011) and CH4 (Nassar and Bernath 2003; Thiévin et al. 2008; Hargreaves
et al. 2012; Yurchenko et al., in prep.)). Several of these line lists are assembled in
the databases EXOMOL (Tennyson and Yurchenko 2012) and HITEMP (Rothman
et al. 2010). Most of these databases will be soon available through the common por-
tal built within the Framework of the VAMDC (Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data
Centre) European Network (Dubernet et al. 2010).
At present, accurate molecular models are still missing to generate complete high
temperature line lists for polyatomic absorbers, such as small hydrocarbons as CH4 ,
Fig. 21b Enlargement of Fig. 13a in the 1–5 μm range, for a spectral resolving power of 300
C2 H2 , C2 H4 or C2 H6 and the C-containing transient species (C2 H, CH2 , C3 , C4 )

which dominate the opacity of Brown Dwarfs, exoplanets and AGBs and play a
primary role in the physical-chemistry of their outer atmospheres. We list them
here:
CH4 —After water, methane is one of the most important opacity sources in the
layers of exoplanets (Sudarsky et al. 2000; Swain et al. 2008, 2009a, 2009b; Tinetti
et al. 2010) as well as in those of Brown Dwarfs (e.g. Allard et al. 1997; Burgasser
et al. 2006; Nakajima et al. 2004). Methane fluorescence has also been observed in
the emission spectrum of an exoplanet (Swain et al. 2010; Waldmann et al. 2012).
The strong transition of methane at 3 μm completely dominates the spectrum of BDs
at 1600 K and is still identifiable at 1800 K (Borysow et al. 2002). Statistical narrow-
band models (Perrin et al. 2007), ab initio models (Warmbier et al. 2009; Yurchenko
et al., in preparation) or extrapolations from global effective models (Wenger et al.
2008) have been proposed to reproduce the low resolution spectrum of CH4 up or
above 2000 K. From an experimental point of view, Nassar and Bernath (2003) mea-
sured line absorption cross sections up to 1273 K. Measurements of line absorption
cross sections up to 1850 K in the 3 μm region were published by Thiévin et al.

(2008). Karkoschka and Tomasko (2010) have collected low temperature laboratory
and planetary measurements to estimate methane transmission in the 0.4–5.5 μm
wavelength interval. Most recently Hargreaves et al. (2012) have published exper-
imental line lists of methane at high temperatures (300–1400 ◦ C) spanning the 2–
10.4 μm region.
C2 H6 —Ethane is the second most abundant hydrocarbon in giant planet atmo-
spheres and in low-mass BDs, so-called T-dwarfs. Thermochemical equilibrium com-
putations indicate that several compounds may be useful to establish temperature or
pressure scales for giant planets, Brown Dwarfs or dwarf star atmospheres (Lodders
and Fegley 2002). For giant planets and warm methane dwarfs, such as Gl 229B, the
deep atmospheric abundance of ethane is a diagnostic temperature probe. This species
could be very useful as temperature probe but high temperature data are missing. The
available absorption cross sections of ethane in the IR were recorded at low and room
temperatures only (Harrison et al. 2010).
C2 H2 —The strong contribution of the 3 μm and 13.7 μm acetylene bands is pre-
dicted by opacity models of AGB stars to prevail up to 2000 K. Moreover, recent
photochemical models (Zahnle et al. 2010) suggest that large amounts of carbon
molecules in the form of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and soot are
present in the upper layers of the envelope of hot Jupiters, such as in HD189733b.
PAHs have strong spectral signatures at 3.3 μm and at 6–7 μm which could be
searched for. In addition, a diagnostic test that would confirm the presence of these
compounds in their envelope is the detection of acetylene (Mousis et al. 2011).
A new experimental approach based on the use of a novel high enthalpy source
(Thiévin et al. 2008) allowed to measure high temperature emission spectra of acety-
lene in the 3 μm range, up to 1455 K, under Doppler limited resolution. These
data, including the complete sequence of hot bands accessing vibrational states up
to 8900 cm−1 , were incorporated in an effective global rovibrational Hamiltonian
which is now able to simulate precise synthetic spectra up to 2000 K (Amyay et al.
2011).
C2 H4 —The emission of AGBs is partly affected by ethylene (C2 H4 ) which has
been detected in the outer shell of IRC+1021641 and IRL61842. Zahnle et al. (2010)
and Stevenson et al. (2010) propose that methane combustion may generate C2 H4
and HCN. Spectroscopic data are not yet reported at T higher than room tempera-
ture.
Transient species—A large number of unstable, unsaturated carbon chain radi-
cals and/or ions have been identified in astrophysical objects including the molec-
ular families HCx and H2 Cx (Cernicharo et al. 2001), Cx (Bernath et al. 1989;
Giesen et al. 2001). However, the spectroscopy of most of these species remains very
incomplete. Several IR bands have yet to be measured in the laboratory; in particular
the low frequency bending modes have never been obtained experimentally except
for a few samples. It would be useful to have direct measurements of rotationally
resolved low frequency vibrations and pure rotation transitions of C3 , C4 , C2 H and
CH2 in order to support the observations of Herschel and ALMA facilities and to
model the high temperature IR spectra of these species. For H+ 3 in particular, there is
a good line list from Neale et al. (1996).
6 Searching for habitability using transit spectroscopy
6.1 Where to look for habitable exoplanets?
An ultimate objective for exoplanets’ exploration is the search for habitable worlds.
In analogy with the conditions of life appearance on Earth, biologists have selected a
few criteria to be fulfilled to have life on extraterrestrial worlds: these criteria are the
simultaneous presence of carbon, liquid water and a source of energy. Astronomers
have defined the concept of habitable zone (HZ) to determine the region where water
can be liquid at the surface of an exoplanet: it corresponds to temperatures ranging
typically between 250 and 380 K. In the case of solar-type stars, the lower boundary
of the HZ is defined by water loss and the presence of a runaway greenhouse effect,
while its outer boundary is defined by CO2 condensation. The resulting boundaries
are then 0.75–0.95 AU for the inner side and 1.37–1.77 AU for the outer side (Kasting
et al. 1993).
As mentioned in previous sections, we have already a handful of terrestrial exo-
planets in the temperate regime, i.e. potentially inside the habitable zone of its star,
but none transiting yet, unless Kepler-22b is confirmed being a super-Earth.
6.2 Spectroscopic biosignatures
The acquisition of spectroscopic data of the Earth’s atmosphere from artificial satel-
lites has changed our perception of terrestrial life and has provided a rigorous scien-
tific framework to search for life elsewhere in our Galaxy. Seen from the outside, our
planet appears to be similar, for some aspects, to other planets, yet it shows distinc-
tive signatures of a life-hosting planet, which cannot be found elsewhere in the Solar
System (Hanel et al. 2003).
Lovelock (1965) and Hitchcock and Lovelock (1967) suggest to search for the
presence of compounds in the planet’s atmosphere which are incompatible on a long-
term basis, i.e. in chemical disequilibrium. For example, oxygen and hydrocarbons
co-exist in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Molecular oxygen was proposed as a biomarker by Owen (1980) and O2 can be
identified through its 760 nm band. This spectral signature is rather weak, though, and
ozone, a photodissociation product of oxygen, appears to be a better tracer, thanks to
its strong spectral signature at 9.6 μm (Angel et al. 1986; see Sect. 5.3.1).
However, oxygen in large quantities is more a tracer of “complex life”: in the
case of the Earth, life appeared in the oceans about 1.5 Gy before the appari-
tion of atmospheric oxygen (Rye and Holland 1998). Before the apparition of oxy-
gen, anaerobes explored various types of metabolisms (methanogens, acetogens, sul-
phate/sulphur/iron/manganese reducers etc.), generating different products in the pro-
cess (Nealson and Stahl 1997). In principle, all these products (e.g. CH4 , CH3 COOH,
H2 S, Fe2+ , MN2+ , etc.) could be considered as biomarkers, but to be detected from
space, they need to be very abundant and not explainable by other abiotic processes,
which is often difficult to discern. For instance, on Earth, most of the methane comes
from the decomposition of living organisms, on the other hand, on Titan the high
abundance of methane is certainly not of biogenic source. N2 O is generated by
Fig. 22 The spectrum of the Earth between 1 and 5 μm, recorder by the Near-infrared Mapping Spec-
trometer of the Galileo spacecraft during its flyby of the Earth in December 1990. The reflected solar
component dominates at short wavelengths, and thermal emission prevails in the infrared range beyond
3 μm. In spite of the very low mixing ratio of water in the terrestrial atmosphere (less than 0.1 %), the
spectrum is entirely dominated by H2 O, with minor contributions from CO2 and marginal signatures from
O3 , N2 O and CH4 . The figure is taken from Drossart et al. (1993)
biomass burning; however its spectral signatures are very weak compared with the
above-mentioned molecules: in the infrared, the spectrum of the Earth is entirely
dominated by water vapour signatures (Fig. 22).
The simultaneous detection of CH4 and O3 could provide a more convincing indi-
cation of life on an exoplanet (Selsis et al. 2008). The MIR wavelength range appears
to be essential for this research. Indeed, all key molecules have very strong signa-
tures in this range: O3 at 9.6 μm, CH4 at 7.7 μm, CO2 at 15.0 μm and H2 O at 6.2 μm
(see Sect. 5.3.1). Figure 23 shows that O3 is detectable only on Earth, while CO2 is
present in the atmospheres of Venus, Earth and Mars.
On Earth, a sharp increase in the reflectivity at wavelengths above 0.7 μm is
a distinctive signature of the vegetation, called the Red Vegetation Edge (RVE).
That was observed in the near-infrared spectrum recorded by the Galileo space-
craft during its Earth flyby (Sagan et al. 1993). While this signature has been pro-
posed as a possible biomarker on exoplanets (Woolf et al. 2002; Arnold et al. 2002;
Seager et al. 2005; Montañés Rodríguez et al. 2006; Sterzik et al. 2012), caution is
needed to avoid false positives: clouds or surface properties may mimic the spectral
shape of the RVE.
6.3 Habitable exoplanets around M-type stars
Among the super-Earths discovered, we have already potential candidates for habit-
ability, e.g. GJ 581d (Mayor et al. 2009) and GJ 667Cc (Anglada-Escudé et al. 2012).
Interestingly, these planets do not orbit a canonical G-star, but rather a much dimmer
and colder M-dwarf, clearly challenging any geocentric concept of habitability. We
should expect many more planets like GJ 581d and GJ 667Cc in the future, given
that 90 % of the stars in the solar neighbourhood are M-dwarfs and, from prelim-
inary analysis of Kepler, small planets are seven times more abundant around cool
Fig. 23 Thermal spectra of

Venus (top), the Earth (middle)
and Mars (bottom). The Venus
data are from Venera 15 Fourier
Transform Interferometer
(Moroz et al. 1986). The Earth
and Mars spectra are from
NIMBUS 4 and Mariner 6,
respectively (Hanel et al. 1992).
The strong CO2 band at 15 μm
(667 cm−1 ) is present on all
planets. Ozone clearly appears
at 9.7 μm (1040 cm−1 ) in the
Earth spectrum; H2 O and CH4
are also visible around 20 μm
(500 cm−1 ) and 7.7 μm
(1400 cm−1 ), respectively. In
the case of the Earth, an
emission core appears at the
centre of the absorption features,
due to the temperature inversion
in the Earth atmosphere. The
figure is taken from Hanel et al.
(1992)
stars (Howard et al. 2013). This represents a paradigm shift in the search for hab-
itable worlds outside our Solar System, a search that started with the “Earth-twin”
obsession.
As M-type stars have an intrinsically low luminosity, their habitable zone is lo-
cated at close distances, typically at 0.1–0.3 AU (Segura et al. 2005). These objects
are thus ideally suited for transit observations. In addition, the planet/star flux contrast
is higher (see Sect. 2.2). Tidal locking is expected to induce superrotation, possibly
observable from phase-curve observations. As the stellar spectrum of the M-star is
redshifted compared with the solar one, Rayleigh scattering (proportional to λ−4 ) is
decreased, as well as the albedo of the planet. The increased magnetic activity of
M-stars may lead to a stronger stellar wind, more stellar flares and possibly more
atmospheric erosion (Lammer et al. 2007; Penz et al. 2008).
Joshi et al. (1997) and Wordsworth et al. (2011) have used three-dimensional sim-
ulations to estimate the climate and habitability of terrestrial planets in orbit around
M stars. They conclude that not only M-dwarf planets can support an atmosphere
over a range of conditions, but even habitability in some cases.
Based on knowledge of photosynthesis on Earth and of stellar evolution, Wols-
tencroft and Raven (2002) conclude that it is likely that photosynthesis would have
evolved on Earth-like planets in response to the same evolutionary factors as have
been involved on Earth. Their model of photosynthesis on Earth-like planets orbiting
stars of different spectral types shows that cooler stars, with maximum radiation out-
put at longer wavelengths, may require more than the 2 photons per electron that are
transferred and that are used in oxygen-evolving photosynthesis on Earth. Detection
of photosynthesis will be based on spectroscopy using most probably photosynthetic
pigments that could have very different absorption properties from those on Earth.
Fig. 24 In the next decade important new facilities are foreseen with relevance to exoplanetary science
On a more speculative note, for M-dwarf planets one would expect that the “exoveg-
etation” is responsible for producing a red-edge–like signature that is redshifted with
respect to that of Earth’s vegetation (Tinetti et al. 2006b; Kiang et al. 2007).
7 The future: prospects from the ground and space
Spectroscopic characterisation of exoplanetary atmospheres is today restricted to

bright targets, i.e. potentially to ∼150 targets. Ground-based telescopes have been
used to cover the VIS/near-infrared spectral range, the Hubble Space Telescope from
the UV to the near-IR and the Spitzer Space Telescope the mid-infrared.
Future prospects include new ground-based facilities and space projects (Fig. 24)
described hereafter. Ideally these projects should include both general purpose facili-
ties with large collective areas (JWST, SPICA, E-ELT, TMT etc.) and small/medium
class dedicated space missions conceived to optimise the wavelength covera ge and
observational strategy (EChO). Both these approaches have advantages and weak-
nesses: being able to use them in synergy would be an asset for this field.
The 40-m E-ELT is under development at ESO (Kissler-Patig and Luybenova
2011; Liske et al. 2011), with an expected first light in 2022. Two instruments have
been selected and are presently under study: ELT-CAM (MICADO), an infrared cam-
era design to exploit the diffraction limit of the telescope (5 milliarcsec at 1 μm), and
ELT-IFU, an integral field spectrometer working in the 0.47–2.46 μm range with re-
solving powers ranging from 4000 to 20000, based on the heritage of the SINFONI
instrument at the VLT; ELT-IFU should be well suited for measuring spectra of tran-
siting exoplanets now detected with 10-m telescopes. The third planned instrument
is ELT-MIR (METIS), an infrared instrument (2.9–14 μm) designed for the spec-
troscopy of transiting exoplanets in the L, M and N bands (Brandl et al. 2008). The
following planned instrument will be either a multi-object spectrograph (ELT-MOS)
or a visible/near IR high-resolution spectrometer (ELT-HIRES); the latter would be
primary designed for the search for exoplanets by radial velocity.
The James Webb Space Telescope, developed by NASA with ESA participation,
is expected to be in operation beyond 2018. Two infrared imaging spectrometers of
special interest for transit spectroscopy of exoplanets will be mounted on its 6.5 m
telescope. The Near Infrared Spectrometer NIRSpec (Gardner et al. 2006) will cover
the 0.6–5 μm range with a spectral resolving power of a few thousands. The MIRI
infrared camera (Wright et al. 2003) will cover the 5–28 μm range using different
modes with high and low spectral resolutions. Sensitivity calculations for exoplanet
characterisation have been performed e.g. by Seager et al. (2009), Kaltenegger and
Traub (2009), Clampin (2010), Deming et al. (2010), Belu et al. (2011) and Rauer
et al. (2012).
Having a large collective area, i.e. more photons, is certainly very positive, but the
lesson learnt from Spitzer and Hubble is that other aspects may be as critical, e.g. the
instrument’s stability and the knowledge of the instrument systematics. Kepler has
been an incontestable success because it was built from start to achieve the 10−4 to
10−5 photometric precision needed to discover Earth-size planets. Another critical
point is the stellar activity, which often forbids the possibility of combining measure-
ments at different wavelengths, if recorded at different times. Moreover, instruments
are most of the time not calibrated at the level needed to combine multiple obser-
vations. The ability to observe simultaneously a broad wavelength range, permits to
solve these issues.
The EChO mission (Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory) is being assessed by
ESA as one of the five ESA-M3 mission candidates, competing for a launch in 2022.
EChO is a 1.2 m telescope to be placed in L2, designed to observe repeatedly a rich
sample of exoplanets over a very extended wavelength range (0.5–16 μm) in a single
run (Tinetti et al. 2012a, 2012b). The objective of EChO is to explore spectroscopi-
cally a large variety of objects, from hot to temperate, including Jupiters, Neptunes
and super-Earths. The duration of the mission will be at least 4 years. Sensitivity
studies were performed by Tessenyi et al. (2012, 2013), and Barstow et al. (2013).
They show that optimal spectroscopic observations require F, G and K stellar tar-
gets brighter than V = 12 and M stars brighter than K = 9. There are presently over
150 existing sources which fulfil these conditions, and more favourable targets are
expected to be discovered in the coming years before the launch of the mission.
8 Conclusions
Little more than ten years ago, the detection of a signal from an exoplanet atmosphere
was still in the realm of science fiction. Pioneering results were then obtained through
primary transits in the UV and visible range, using the Hubble Space Telescope/STIS
instrument. These were later extended towards the infrared, making possible the de-
tection of molecular species and of the planet’s thermal emission. Key instruments
have been the IRAC camera and the IRS spectrometer on board the Spitzer satellite
and the Hubble NICMOS spectrograph and WFC3 camera. Important contributions
have also come from ground-based instruments, in particular CRIRES on the VLT,
the infrared spectrometer NIRSPEC on the Keck, and the imaging spectrometer SpeX
at IRTF. Ground-based facilities offer specific niches for focussed observations, often
unfeasible from space.
The exploration of transiting exoplanets has revealed an incredible variety of ob-
jects, exceeding by far what we could expect based on our own solar system. Such
a variety begs to observe their atmospheric chemical composition. Results obtained
over the past ten years on a few hot Jupiters already illustrate that these objects are
much more complex than expected: their atmospheric composition, in fact, cannot
be explained by simple thermochemical equilibrium calculations. The simultaneous
presence of CO2 and CH4 , for instance, indicates that other physical processes, most
likely transport-induced quenching and photochemistry, are at work.
The difficulty in retrieving simultaneously the thermal profile and the chemical
abundances can be addressed by using both primary transits and secondary eclipses,
and by extending the spectral range as much as possible, to benefit from the simul-
taneous observation of multiple bands for a given species. Infrared spectroscopic
data—measured of calculated—of methane, ethylene and ethane between 500 and
3000 K, will be critical to improve the interpretation of the observed spectra.
The few available transit spectra of hot Jupiters are comparable in quality with the
Solar System planetary spectra known in the 1970s, before the Voyager era. With the
arrival of larger telescopes or dedicated instruments in the coming decade, planetary
science will expand beyond the narrow boundaries of our Solar System to encompass
our whole Galaxy.
Acknowledgements This work has largely benefited from the use of the Exoplanets Encyclopedia
(http://exoplanets.eu; Schneider et al. 2013). This work was supported by the Royal Society, CNRS and
the French ANR project CH4@Titan.
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Astron Astrophys Rev (2013) 21:63

Spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres in our Galaxy

Giovanna Tinetti · Thérèse Encrenaz ·

Received: 5 September 2012 / Published online: 26 October 2013

Keywords Extrasolar planets · Spectroscopy · Radiative transfer

Fig. 1 Orbital eccentricity

Fig. 3 Key questions that can be addressed by transit spectroscopy

2 Transit spectroscopy: what can it tell us?

2.1 Primary transits

2.1.1 Geometry of a primary transit

Finally, the transit depth as a function of wavelength is given by

2.1.2 Primary transit observations

The upper atmosphere of an exoplanet can be effectively probed by transit technique

2.2 Secondary eclipses

A direct measurement of the planet’s emission/reflection can be obtained through the

The stellar and planetary spectra can be modelled by radiative-transfer calculations,

At zero-order approximation, the emitted component of the planetary contribution

2.3 Planet phase-variations

3 Atmospheric composition of transiting planets: what can we expect?

3.1 Mass and temperature

for a slow-rotating or phase-locked planet, and

Distance to the star (AU) 0.05 0.1 1 5 20

A (T = 10000 K) 3315 2344 625 279 140

3.2 Escape and evolution

Vesc = [2GMP /RP ]1/2 (12)

Vth = [3kTth N/μ]1/2 (13)

where k is Boltzmann’s constant, N is the Avogadro number and μ is the molar

Vth < 0.2Vesc (14)

The critical mass μc is the value for which Vesc = Vth :

3.3 Hot and warm Jupiters and Neptunes

Initial estimates of the composition of an exoplanet atmosphere, can be inferred as-

CO + 3H2 ↔ CH4 + H2 O (16)

Hot, CO, N2 expected

Hot, CH4 , N2 exp.

Table 3 Hot and warm Neptunes with V ∗ < 13 (A = 0.03)

3.4 Hot and warm small Exos

3.5 Temperate and cold Jupiters and Neptunes

3.6 Temperate and cold small Exos

where R ∗ is expressed in solar radii.

4 Formation mechanisms and atmospheric composition

An (exo)planetary spectrum shows two main components:

5.1 Reflected/scattered stellar component and thermal emission

Fig. 10a Reflected and thermal

Fig. 10b Reflected and thermal

Fig. 10c Reflected and thermal

Fig. 11 Reflected and thermal

5.2 Which spectral range is best suited?

Fig. 12 Reflected and thermal

5.3 Main molecular bands and constraints on the resolving power

5.3.1 The 2–18 μm range

Molecule ν = 2B0 λ (Smax ) Smax R λ (Smax ) Smax R

H2 O 29.0 2.69 (ν1 , ν3 ) 200 130 6.27 (ν2 ) 250 55

Fig. 13 Calculated line

5.3.2 The 1–2 μm range

and ground-based facilities, modelling exoplanetary spectra in this spectral range is

5.3.3 The visible range

5.3.4 A modelling of an exoplanet transit spectrum between 1 and 16 μm

Fig. 18 Transmission of main

5.3.5 Status of current databases for hot temperatures