Occultations in the solar system and in the transits of exoplanets are perfectly complementary, in both cases, the light that is transmitted through the atmosphere carries with it the spectral signatures of whatever gases, hazes, and clouds might be present in the planet's atmosphere.

Tyler Robinson

Categorized in : Science

For the worlds where our current best explanation for their flat spectra is a planet-wide haze layer, though, our observations show that Titan's haze isn't a good analogy for whatever makes up the haze on these distant worlds, some other kind of haze, with different properties for interacting with light, could explain the flat spectrum.

Most solar system worlds have clouds or hazes of some types in their atmosphere, by studying occultations — by, say, Venus or Saturn's atmosphere — in the solar system, we have an exciting opportunity to explore the variety of ways hazes and clouds can sculpt transit spectra.