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The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
Understanding how giant and terrestrial planets form and evolve, what is their internal structure and that of their atmosphere, represents one of the major challenges of modern astronomy, which is directly connected to the ultimate search…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is predicted to make great advances in the field of exoplanet atmospheres. Its 25 m2 mirror means that it can reach unprecedented levels of precision in observations of transit spectra, and can thus…
Stars and their exoplanets evolve together. Depending on the physical characteristics of these systems, such as age, orbital distance and activity of the host stars, certain types of star-exoplanet interactions can dominate during given…
The search for life in the universe is currently focused on Earth-analog planets. However, we should be prepared to find a diversity of terrestrial exoplanets not only in terms of host star but also in terms of surface environment.…
The planned launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 will herald a new era of exoplanet spectroscopy. JWST will be the first telescope sensitive enough to potentially characterize terrestrial planets from their transmission spectra.…
The precise Doppler method for measuring stellar radial velocities (RV) is a fundamental technique in modern astronomy. This method records a star's spectrum and detects periodic Doppler shifts in its spectral features, which indicate the…
Provided that sufficient resources are deployed, we can look forward to an extraordinary future in which we will characterize potentially habitable planets. Until now, we have had to base interpretations of observations on habitability…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
High-resolution spectroscopy (HRS) has grown into one of the main techniques to characterise the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. High spectral resolving power allows for the efficient removal of telluric and host-star contamination.…
The critical first step in the search for life on exoplanets over the next decade is to determine whether rocky planets transiting small M-dwarf stars possess atmospheres and, if so, what processes sculpt them over time. Because of its…
Exoplanet detection by direct imaging is a difficult task: the faint signals from the objects of interest are buried under a spatially structured nuisance component induced by the host star. The exoplanet signals can only be identified when…
Of the 342 planets discovered so far orbiting other stars, 58 "transit" the stellar disk, meaning that they can be detected by a periodic decrease in the starlight flux. The light from the star passes through the atmosphere of the planet,…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
Eclipse exoplanet spectroscopy has yielded detection of H_2O, CH_4, CO_2 and CO in the atmosphere of hot jupiters and neptunes. About 40 large terrestrial planets are announced or confirmed, two of which are transiting, and another deemed…
Thousands of planets beyond our solar system have been discovered to date, dozens of which are rocky in composition and are orbiting within the circumstellar habitable zone of their host star. The next frontier in life detection beyond our…
We briefly review the various proposed scenarios that may lead to nonthermal radio emissions from exoplanetary systems (planetary magnetospheres, magnetosphere-ionosphere and magnetosphere-satellite coupling, and star-planet interactions),…
Context. The spectra of fast-rotating A-type stars have strongly broadened absorption lines. This effect causes blending of the absorption lines, hindering the measurement of the abundances of the elements that are in the stellar…
Planetary atmospheres are inherently 3D objects that can have strong gradients in latitude, longitude, and altitude. Secondary eclipse mapping is a powerful way to map the 3D distribution of the atmosphere, but the data can have large…