Five Key Exoplanet Questions Answered via the Analysis of 25 Hot-Jupiter Atmospheres in Eclipse

Abstract

Population studies of exoplanets are key to unlocking their statistical properties. So far, the inferred properties have been mostly limited to planetary, orbital, and stellar parameters extracted from, e.g., Kepler, radial velocity, and Gaia data. More recently an increasing number of exoplanet atmospheres have been observed in detail from space and the ground. Generally, however, these atmospheric studies have focused on individual planets, with the exception of a couple of works that have detected the presence of water vapor and clouds in populations of gaseous planets via transmission spectroscopy. Here, using a suite of retrieval tools, we analyze spectroscopic and photometric data of 25 hot Jupiters, obtained with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes via the eclipse technique. By applying the tools uniformly across the entire set of 25 planets, we extract robust trends in the thermal structure and chemical properties of hot Jupiters not obtained in past studies. With the recent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming missions Twinkle and Ariel, population-based studies of exoplanet atmospheres, such as the one presented here, will be a key approach to understanding planet characteristics, formation, and evolution in our galaxy.