Abstract

Thanks to precision radial velocity surveys, Kepler, TESS, GAIA and WFIRST, we will soon have a relatively complete understanding of the demographics of planets and planetary systems. However, to study exoplanets beyond their locations, masses and radii requires photometry and spectroscopy of the planets themselves.  I will describe how novel instrumentation has improved our ability to characterize directly-imaged extrasolar planets, focusing particularly on the thermal infrared (3-5 microns) where self-luminous gas-giants peak in brightness.  New telescopes, adaptive optics systems, integral field spectrographs, an of course, the James Webb Space Telescope, will enable an enormous range of new measurements on a diverse range of extrasolar planets.