The Hot Rocks Survey: Testing 9 Irradiated Terrestrial Exoplanets for Atmospheres 

Terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs are currently the most promising sample of targets for detecting and characterizing rocky world atmospheres outside of the Solar System. However, M dwarf systems are very different from our own, and it may be that these worlds are airless bare rocks.

The Hot Rocks Survey is a large programme with the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate nine irradiated terrestrial exoplanets orbiting nearby M dwarfs for the presence of atmospheres. We will probe the hot exteriors of these worlds for atmospheric signatures or rocky surface compositions, and look at the ensemble sample to figure out what underlying physical processes are at play.