Mid-Infrared Properties of Disk Averaged Observations of Earth with AIRS

Abstract

We have investigated mid-infrared spectra of Earth obtained by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on-board the AQUA spacecraft to explore the characteristics that may someday be observed in extrasolar terrestrial planets. We have used the AIRS infrared (R ~ 1200; 3.75-15.4 microns) spectra to construct directly-observed high-resolution spectra of the only known life bearing planet, Earth. The AIRS spectra are the first such spectra that span the seasons. We investigate the rotational and seasonal spectral variations that would arise due to varying cloud amount and viewing geometry and we explore what signatures may be observable in the mid-infrared by the next generation of telescopes capable of observing extrasolar terrestrial planets.

23 pages, 11 figures

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• Transmission Spectroscopy with the ACE-FTS Infrared Spectral Atlas of Earth: A Model Validation and Feasibility Study
• Earthshine as an Illumination Source at the Moon
• Earth as an Exoplanet. II. Earth's Time-variable Thermal Emission and Its Atmospheric Seasonality of Bioindicators
• Earth as an Exoplanet: I. Time variable thermal emission using spatially resolved MODIS data
• Earth as an Exoplanet. III. Using Empirical Thermal Emission Spectra as an Input for Atmospheric Retrieval of an Earth-twin Exoplanet
• Pursuing Truth: Improving Retrievals on Mid-Infrared Exo-Earth Spectra with Physically Motivated Water Abundance Profiles and Cloud Models
• Exoplanet Analog Observations of Earth from Galileo Disk-integrated Photometry
• Disk-averaged spectrum generation for spherically symmetric planets and moons