This Digi Kit was created with the support of a subcontract from the NASA Heliophysics Education Consortium to Temple University and the AAPT under NASA Grant/Cooperative Agreement Number NXX16AR36A. The goal of this Digi Kit is to promote interdisciplinary exploration that integrates physics with space science in a format that blends modeling, analysis of authentic data, and pattern recognition in a large-scale system. The Digi Kit features the following original materials:

  • Lecture Tutorial with comprehensive Teacher's Guide, co-authored by S. Willoughby, R. Vieyra, R. Lopez, and J. Bailey
  • "Teacher Notes", written by David Straw, PhD, and Caroline Hall

The Exoplanet Atmospheres Science Digi Kit was inspired by an article in the 2014 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "The Future of Spectroscopic Life Detection on Exoplanets", by Sara Seager. Click Here to view the this free-access article.

AAPT Digi Kits are curated, edited, and annotated by Caroline Hall, managing editor and eBook collection developer for the AAPT. Please contact chall@aapt.org with questions, suggestions, or to report errors.

Relevant Links:

ComPADRE Digital Libraries in Physics and Astronomy

AAPT Digi Kits Collection

Special thanks go out to the following people and organizations:

  • The NASA-SSEC Team
  • David Straw, PhD, subject matter expert for the AAPT Digi Kits Project
  • Mario Belloni, Professor and Chair of Physics, Davidson College, for his simulation, "Exoplanet Detection: Transit Method"
  • Space Science Telescope Institute (SSCI) for the "Transiting Exoplanet Interactive Animation"
  • NASA Goddard Media Studies for the "Exoplanet Transit Animations" 
  • The PhET Project, for its simulation, "Blackbody Spectrum"
  • National Optical Astronomy Observatory for the tutorial, "Stellar Spectroscopy"
  • Andrew Vanderburg, PhD, University of Texas-Austin, for his "Transit Light Curve Tutorial"
  • Uppsala University Department of Astronomy for their "Exoplanet Atmospheres" tutorial
  • Laura Kreidberg, PhD, Harvard University, for the article, "Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Transmission Spectroscopy and other Planet-Star Combined Light Observations"
  • European Space Observatory for its "Stunning Exoplanet Time-Lapse" video and "High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher" tutorial
  • NASA, for its "Interactive Exoplanet Catalog"
  • Michael Richmond, PhD, Rochester Institute of Technology for his "Spectra of Gas Discharges" digital resource, and for his tutorial, "Spectroscopy of Exoplanets"
  • The Paris Observatory, for its "Encyclopedia of Exoplanets"
  • SpectralCalc, for its free-access "Blackbody Calculator"
  • Ethan Siegel, PhD, and Forbes Magazine for the article, "Do Earth-Sized Planets Around Other Stars Have Atmospheres?"
  • Linda B. Glaser, Cornell University, for her article, "The Hunt Is on for Closest Earth-Like Planets"
  • NASA Blueshift, for the article, "Why Infrared? (Exoplanet Edition)
  • The Planetary Society, for the article, "Transit Photometry: A Method for Finding Earths"
  • Michael Fowler, PhD, University of Virginia, for his free-access tutorial, "Black Body Radiation"