Presented on ZOOM Public Lecture November 10th at 7pm
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
“Exoplanet Atmospheres”
For millennia, humans have postulated the existence of worlds such as our own beyond the Solar System. Since the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star 30 years ago, over 6,000 exoplanets have now been confirmed. In that time, our observational and theoretical methods have advanced beyond detection, and into the characterisation of the atmospheres of these distant worlds. In this talk, I will explore how we observe and characterise exoplanet atmospheres from both the ground and space. Using data from some of our most advanced telescopes, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), I will also highlight recent techniques that now reveal the three-dimensional nature of these alien atmospheres.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr Cathal Maguire
I’m a postdoctoral researcher in the ExoTiC group at the University of Bristol. My research focusses on using JWST observations to extract information on the multi-dimensional nature of exoplanetary atmospheres.
I completed my PhD at Trinity College Dublin in 2024, where I worked on high-resolution transmission spectroscopy observations of exoplanetary atmospheres, under the supervision of Prof. Neale Gibson.
My PhD research was primarily focused on using advanced Bayesian inference techniques to constrain the atmospheric composition and dynamics of ultra-hot Jupiters.