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G. S. Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)
Research on various topics of planetary atmospheres has always relied heavily on supporting laboratory research. This is true of model synthesis, and analysis of both earth-based and spacecraft data sets. This review will discuss progress and the remaining challenges in the fields of remote sensing and spectroscopy, physical chemistry and chemical reactions as they relate to the exploration of planetary atmospheres. In this process we discover the need for investigation or verification of rather outdated laboratory results, as well as the obvious search for ways to determine the dependence of various phenomena on environmental factors such as pressure or temperature that are difficult to reproduce in the laboratory.