Transmission spectroscopy has been one of the main workhorses in the past decade for probing the chemical composition and physical structure of the upper atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. The technique holds great promise to keep delivering these exciting results, with the excitement rising given the imminent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These measurements, however, can be impacted by inhomogeneities on the stellar disk the planets transit, including spots, faculae, and plages. This symposium aims at exploring the different results and views on the nature, constraints and ideas on this “stellar contamination”.
This symposium was organized as part of NASA’s ExoPAG Study Analysis Group 21 on “The Effect of Stellar Contamination on Space-based Transmission Spectroscopy”, whose main aim is to gather expertises from the stellar, solar and exoplanet communities in order to work together towards recommendations to constrain the effect, to be delivered to NASA in mid-2021.
The SAG 21 subgroup leads gave overviews on the activities and preliminary findings of SAG 21.
At the same time, many researchers within SAG 21 and the broader community gave contributed talks on relevant topics.
We ended the symposium with an extended discussion on all that was shared and its relation to the SAG 21 report.