Seminars and Colloquia at ESO Garching and on the campus

Understanding how atmospheres move is key to understanding the inner workings of planets - how their material is distributed and the subsequent implications on their formation and potential to host life. In our own Solar System, the observable fingerprints of winds in spectra are easily accessible and have provided substantial input into the composition and formation of our gas giants. Until recently, however, directly measuring winds in exoplanet atmospheres remained out of reach.

In this talk, I will present recent results that use ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode to directly probe atmospheric winds on close-in exoplanets. By resolving individual atomic absorption lines during planetary transit, we can detect Doppler shifts caused by day-to-night flows and global circulation patterns at different depths in these distant worlds. These measurements provide the first direct three dimensional constraints on wind speeds and directions in exoplanet atmospheres.

I will outline the observational technique, discuss what these wind measurements tell us about atmospheric dynamics and energy transport under extreme irradiation, and highlight how such observations are opening a new window on comparative planetology beyond the Solar System — just in time for the ELT era.