Projects

The Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, has been selected to be the next ESA M4 space mission. From its launch in 2028 and during its 4 years of operation, ARIEL will perform a spectroscopic survey of the atmospheres of about 1000 transiting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. ARIEL will provide the scientific community with the first spectroscopic survey of a statistically significant sample of exoplanet atmospheres, covering the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning from the visible to the mid-IR. ARIEL will allow us to answer questions about the true nature of these faraway worlds, their atmospheric and physical conditions, and their formation and evolutionary histories.

The EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE) is a balloon-borne spectrograph that will address the limitations of current space-based NIR observatories while complementing and maximizing the science return of JWST. With a 0.5 m-class telescope, EXCITE will measure spectroscopic phase curves of bright, short-period extrasolar giant planets (EGPs, or “hot Jupiters”) across the 1–4 μm range. We will continuously observe each target for a full orbital period and use the resulting phase-resolved spectroscopy to map the planet’s temperature profile and chemical composition as a function of longitude.

In the last decade, the number of known exoplanets has increased tenfold: at the end of 2009, there were about 400 known exoplanets, while at the end of 2019, confirmed discoveries reached more than 4000. This number is still increasing, thanks to space and ground-based missions, and with that, our understanding of exoplanets is changing. With so many worlds to feature, we have to start looking at them as a whole.

So, I started developing statistical tools to characterize and classify not just individual planets, but entire populations.