Observing Rocky Exoplanets: Populations, atmospheres, and open questions

There are more planets than stars in the galaxy, and the majority of those planets are small, with radii less than 5 Earth radii. After years of effort from the ground and space we now have a substantial population of small worlds with measured radii and masses, from which we can derive their bulk densities. Terrestrial exoplanets have radii and masses that put them roughly on the Earth/Venus composition curve.

But bulk compositions do not tell the whole story. To really understand these planets and figure out what they're made up, we must detect and characterize their atmospheres. In this talk I will devle into how we detect and categorize terrestrial exoplanets, what it takes to observe their atmospheres, and why we need to pay attention to their M dwarf hosts. I will touch upon recent results from JWST and major open questions for the coming years.