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J.J. Fortney, M.S. Marley (NASA Ames), S. Seager (Carnegie DTM)
The direct imaging of extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) in visible light using ground- or space-based coronographs will likely be possible in the next few years. In order to increase detection efficiency, filters for telescopes must be designed so that the maximum contrast can be achieved for the planet/star flux ratio. Beyond detection, characterizing EGPs will require a refined understanding of the planets' atmospheres. Technological limitations force the use of broader filters than traditionally used to probe the atmospheres of solar system planets. Hence filters must be designed such that the maximum amount of information about the planet (such as cloud structure, gravity, metallicity) can be extracted using only magnitudes and colors in a few filters. Here we present our work on the design of filters for medium and wide-band imaging, based on previously published atmosphere models and our own new calculations. We compute magnitudes and colors for these models in a variety of filters and compare the model-derived values to those of our solar system's giant planets. In addition, we present our initial efforts to model the atmospheric structure and reflection spectra of EGPs while incorporating the effects of atmospheric hazes. Photochemically-derived hazes are important to the energy balance and reflection spectra of Jupiter and Saturn, but have yet to be included into EGP atmosphere modeling.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jfortney@arc.nasa.gov
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #4
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.