ERC Starting Grant · 2020
Half of known exoplanets orbit close to their star, featuring a desert of hot Neptunes whose origins remain uncertain. These planets may have lost their gas atmosphere, eroding into the dust-rich rocky planets found below the desert. Testing this scenario requires deriving accurate mass losses, but a lack of observational tracers prevented us from validating and refining models of escaping atmospheres. The coupling of atmospheric evolution with orbital migration, which can bring planets close to their star in various ways and delay their erosion, also remains to be explored. My work on infrared spectroscopy recently opened a new window into atmospheric escape, complementing traditional…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.