Exoplanet Atmospheres: Diversity, Diagnostics, and JWST-Driven Insights into Climate, Formation, and Habitability

To the point

Exoplanet atmospheres reveal climates, formation histories, and potential habitability across thousands of worlds, learned by spectroscopy from ground, air, and space with Hubble and JWST to detect water vapor, clouds, and exotic materials, with JWST promising subtler compounds and comparisons to Earth and Neptune to understand formation and migration, including unusual cloud materials like enstatite and corundum and water vapor as a possible life indicator, while numerical simulations model atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, brown dwarfs show exotic mineral/metal clouds, clouds and hazes regulate heat and observability, and discoveries like sulfur dioxide on WASP-39 b and diverse atmospheres in Trappist-1 and HD149026b illustrate the evolving picture of planetary climates and their potential to harbor life.