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Aerosols are common in the atmospheres of exoplanets across a wide swath oftemperatures, masses, and ages. These aerosols strongly impact observations oftransmitted, reflected, and emitted light from exoplanets, obfuscating ourunderstanding of exoplanet thermal structure and composition. Knowing thedominant aerosol composition would facilitate interpretations of exoplanetobservations and theoretical understanding of their atmospheres. A variety ofcompositions have been proposed, including metal oxides and sulphides, iron,chromium, sulphur, and hydrocarbons. However, the relative contributions ofthese species to exoplanet aerosol opacity is unknown. Here we show that theaerosol composition of giant exoplanets observed in transmission is dominatedby silicates and hydrocarbons. By constraining an aerosol microphysics modelwith trends in giant exoplanet transmission spectra, we find that silicatesdominate aerosol opacity above planetary equilibrium temperatures of 950 K dueto low nucleation energy barriers and high elemental abundances, whilehydrocarbon aerosols dominate below 950 K due to an increase in methaneabundance. Our results are robust to variations in planet gravity andatmospheric metallicity within the range of most giant transiting exoplanets.We predict that spectral signatures of condensed silicates in the mid-infraredare most prominent for hot (>1600 K), low-gravity (<10 m s$^{-2}$) objects.

Aerosol Composition of Hot Giant Exoplanets Dominated by Silicates and Hydrocarbon Hazes