Abstract: An ever growing number and diversity of short-period planet atmospheres are now accessible through the transit-radius spectra (transmission spectroscopy). Detections over the last decade have mainly been hot Jupiter gas giant planets, which have provided the first measurements of composition, structure, and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres. I will discuss the current state of the art for these observations including HST, Spitzer and large ground-based telescopes, review what can be learned from these measurements, and examine what can be realistically achieved in the reasonably near future through this technique.

Additional materials: PDF of slides

ExoClimes 2010, Exeter, Wednesday 8^th Sep 2010