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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20090612T000000
DTEND;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20090612T010000
UID:iactalks-45
X-WR-CALNAME: IAC Talks: Open Astronomy Seminars
X-ORIGINAL-URL: /iactalks/Talks/view/45
CREATED:2009-06-12T00:00:00+01:00
X-WR-CALDESC: IAC Talks upcomming talks
SUMMARY:The transmission spectrum of the Earth from lunar eclipse observati
 ons: the pale red dot
DESCRIPTION:The transmission spectrum of the Earth from lunar eclipse obser
 vations: the pale red dot\nDr. Enric Pallé Bago\n\nOf the 342 planets dis
 covered so far orbiting other stars, 58 'transit' the stellar disk, meanin
 g that they can be detected by a periodic decrease in the starlight flux. 
 The light from the star passes through the atmosphere of the planet, and i
 n a few cases the basic atmospheric composition of the planet can be estim
 ated. As we get closer to finding analogues of Earth, an important conside
 ration toward the characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres is what the
  transmission spectrum of our planet looks like. Here we report the optica
 l and near-infrared transmission spectrum of the Earth, obtained during a 
 lunar eclipse. Some biologically relevant atmospheric features that are we
 ak in the reflected spectrum (such as ozone, molecular oxygen, water, carb
 on dioxide and methane) are much stronger in the transmission spectrum, an
 d indeed stronger than predicted by modeling. We also find the fingerprint
 s of the Earth's ionosphere and of the major atmospheric constituent, diat
 omic nitrogen (N2), which are missing in the reflected spectrum. Our resul
 ts indicate that the technique of transit spectroscopy of rocky planets ma
 y be a very powerful tool for exoplanet atmospheric characterization, and 
 is likely to provide the first detection of a habitable exobiosphere.
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