Description
Now in its fourth year of operations, JWST has been used to obtain transmission spectra of approximately thirty exoplanets, with many more upcoming observations. These planets span a range of sizes, compositions and temperatures, and include smaller and more temperate planets that have not previously been probed in detail before. Compared to previous facilities, such as Spitzer and HST, JWST returns spectra with much greater precision and wavelength range. We have developed an independent pipeline, JexoPipe, to process JWST transmission spectra. This pipeline has been applied to key JWST instrument modes including NIRSpec Prism, NIRSpec G395H, MIRI LRS and NIRISS SOSS. Given the wide range of community solutions to various instrumental effects and systematics, it is important to have independent pipelines to cross-verify results and contribute to the development of best practices. Independent pipelines also spawn novel solutions to instrumental and astrophysical systematics. We will continue to develop and expand JexoPipe to include all remaining JWST exoplanet instrument modes. Here, we discuss how JWST is opening up our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres, presenting transmission spectra processed by JexoPipe, and covering a range of exoplanet types and instrumental modes. We use these spectra to search for population trends in atmospheric properties. Such trends are important for furthering our understanding of atmospheric processes, planet formation mechanisms and planet taxonomy.
