Exoplanet research focusing on the characterization of super-Earths is currently limited to those handful targets orbiting bright stars that are amenable to detailed study .
This Letter proposes to look at alternative avenues to probe the surface and atmospheric properties of this category of planets , known to be ubiquitous in our galaxy .
I conduct Markov Chain Monte Carlo lightcurve analyses for 97 Kepler close-in R _ { P } \lesssim 2.0 R _ { \oplus } super-Earth candidates with the aim to detect their occultations at visible wavelengths .
Brightness temperatures and geometric albedos in the Kepler bandpass are constrained for 27 super-Earth candidates .
A hierarchical Bayesian modeling approach is then employed to characterize the population-level reflective properties of these close-in super-Earths .
I find median geometric albedos A _ { g } in the Kepler bandpass ranging between 0.16 and 0.30 , once decontaminated from thermal emission .
These super-Earths geometric albedos are statistically larger than for hot Jupiters , which have medians A _ { g } ranging between 0.06 and 0.11 .
A subset of objects , including Kepler-10b , exhibit significantly larger albedos ( A _ { g } \gtrsim 0.4 ) .
I argue that a better understanding of the incidence of stellar irradiation on planetary surface and atmospheric processes is key to explain the diversity in albedos observed for close-in super-Earths .