Related papers: Inverting Phase Functions to Map Exoplanets
High-contrast imaging for the detection and characterization of exoplanets relies on the instrument's capability to block out the light of the host star. Some current post-processing methods for calibrating out the residual speckles use…
Planned missions will spatially resolve temperate terrestrial planets from their host star. Although reflected light from such a planet encodes information about its surface, it has not been shown how to establish surface characteristics of…
Future missions like Roman, HabEx, and LUVOIR will directly image exoplanets in reflected light. While current near infrared direct imaging searches are only sensitive to young, self-luminous planets whose brightness is independent of their…
To date, a handful of exoplanets have been photometrically mapped using phase-modulated reflection or emission from their surfaces, but the small amplitudes of such signals have limited previous maps almost exclusively to coarse dipolar…
In the era of photometry with space-based telescopes, such as CHEOPS (CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite), JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), and ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing…
A unique analytical solution of planet and star parameters can be derived from an extrasolar planet transit light curve under a number of assumptions. This analytical solution can be used to choose the best planet transit candidates for…
We present a semi-analytic model atmosphere for close-in exoplanets that captures the essential physics of phase curves: orbital and viewing geometry, advection, and re-radiation. We calibrate the model with the well-characterized…
Earthshine observations offer a unique opportunity to study Earth as an exoplanet seen from the Moon. As the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry changes, Earth can be observed as a spatially unresolved exoplanet at different phase angles, providing…
The light scattered by an extrasolar Earth-like planet's surface and atmosphere will vary in intensity and color as the planet rotates; the resulting light curve will contain information about the planet's properties. Since most of the…
Future telescopes will characterize rocky exoplanets in reflected light, revealing their albedo, which depends on surface, cloud, and atmospheric properties. Identifying these features is crucial for assessing habitability. We present…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will observe $\sim$150~million stars brighter than $T_{\rm mag} \approx 16$, with photometric precision from 60~ppm to 3~percent, enabling an array of exoplanet and stellar astrophysics…
The photometric transit method has been the most effective method to detect and characterize exoplanets as several ground-based as well as space-based survey missions have discovered thousands of exoplanets using this method. With the…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
We propose a direct imaging method for the detection of exoplanets based on a combined low-rank plus structured sparse model. For this task, we develop a dictionary of possible effective circular trajectories a planet can take during the…
The detection of exoplanets in coronographic images is severely limited by residual starlight speckles. Dedicated post-processing can drastically reduce this "stellar leakage" and thereby increase the faintness of detectable exoplanets.…
Characterizing the surfaces of rocky exoplanets via the scattered light will be an essential challenge to investigate the existence of life on habitable exoplanets. We present a simple reconstruction method for fractional areas of different…
We have developed a universal approach to compute accurately the brightness of eclipsing binary systems during the transit of a planet in front of the stellar disk. This approach is uniform for all values of the system parameters and…
Phase curves are the best technique to probe the three dimensional structure of exoplanets' atmospheres. In this chapter we first review current exoplanets phase curve observations and the particular challenges they face. We then describe…
We have added to the Chroma+ suite of stellar atmosphere and spectrum modelling codes the ability to synthesize the exo-planet transit lightcurve for planets of arbitrary size up to 10% of the host stellar radius, and arbitrary planetary…
This paper describes a simple activity for plotting and characterizing the light curve from an exoplanet transit event by way of differential photometry analysis. Using free digital imaging software, participants analyse a series of…