Project description
Mapping the 3D weather and dynamics of giant exoplanet atmospheres
Giant exoplanets have turbulent atmospheres shaped by their own rotation and heat, and the irradiation of their host stars. Directly imaging these atmospheres is not possible because they are so far away. However, researchers can use telescope data to track their weather. These measurements carry the effects of global wind patterns and storm activity. The ERC-funded VORTEX project is developing a new suite of tools to analyse this data by combining physics-based simulations with machine learning. Specifically, the project is creating 3D maps of these alien skies. Project work will explain how atmospheric flows transport heat across irradiated planets and how weather patterns shift on worlds with wide or highly elliptical orbits.
Objective
The solar system's giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, host atmospheres with clear belts, cloudy bands, and storms like the Great Red Spot. They represent the class of cool, isolated giant planets. For a full view of giant planet atmospheres we must study the known exoplanet population over a wide range of orbits, temperatures, and spins. However, exoplanets are too far away to resolve them directly.
The James Webb Space Telescope is changing this: time-resolved spectra probe the atmospheres of rotating wide-orbit planets, whose light curves reveal active weather. The Extremely Large Telescope's METIS and ANDES instruments will study giant planets from close to wide orbits at high spectral resolution, probing winds through Doppler shifts, allowing us to constrain flow and temperature structures.
In spite of these amazing prospects, there is no framework to properly fit JWST or future ELT data. State-of-the-art techniques are prohibitively slow, preventing hypothesis testing. This is a fundamental challenge that needs to be resolved - otherwise we cannot use the information encoded in our data.
With the VORTEX project I will develop the machinery to map the 3D, dynamical atmospheres of giant exoplanets, from strongly irradiated to the most isolated ones. The modeling challenge will be addressed through a feedback between novel machine learning inference methods and hydrodynamical models. Our project will answer the three questions: (i) what are the properties, scales and lifetimes of storms on isolated planets? (ii) how do flows transport gas on irradiated planets? (iii) how do atmospheres of planets on eccentric orbits react to changing irradiation?
VORTEX will have a long-lasting impact by enabling the 3D interpretation of exoplanet spectra. Answers to the questions above will reveal which processes govern the 3D atmospheres of exoplanets. Our methods will pave the way for analyzing similarly complex astronomical datasets recorded with the largest telescopes.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets giant planets
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets exoplanetology
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics photons
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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80539 MUNCHEN
Germany
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