2019/03/14 by Fossati, L., Rossi, L., Stam, D. +19
#Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1903.05834
The polarization state of starlight reflected by a planetary atmosphere uniquely reveals coverage, particle size, and composition of aerosols as well as changing cloud patterns. It is not possible to obtain a comparable level of detailed from flux-only observations. Furthermore, polarization observations can probe the atmosphere of planets independently of the orbital geometry (i.e., transiting and non-transiting planets). We show that a high-resolution spectropolarimeter with a broad wavelength coverage, particularly if attached to a large space telescope, would enable simultaneous study of the polarimetric exoplanet properties of the continuum and to look for and characterize the polarimetric signal due to scattering from single molecules.