Related papers: Analytic Modeling of Starshades
A multitude of coronagraphic techniques for the space-based direct detection and characterization of exo-solar terrestrial planets are actively being pursued by the astronomical community. Typical coronagraphs have internal shaped focal…
Direct detection of extrasolar planets will require imaging systems capable of unprecedented contrast. Apodized pupils provide an attractive way to achieve such contrast but they are difficult, perhaps impossible, to manufacture to the…
Starshade is one of the technologies that will enable the observation and characterization of small planets around nearby stars through direct imaging. The Starshade Exoplanetary Data Challenge (SEDC) was designed to validate…
Starshades are a leading technology to enable the detection and spectroscopic characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. In this paper we report on optical experiments of sub-scale starshades that advance critical starlight suppression…
Starshade in formation flight with a space telescope is a rapidly maturing technology that would enable imaging and spectral characterization of small planets orbiting nearby stars in the not-too-distant future. While performance models of…
Recently, we introduced a class of shaped pupil masks, called spiderweb masks, that produce point spread functions having annular dark zones. With such masks, a single image can be used to probe a star for extrasolar planets. In this paper,…
In this paper, an alternative to the classical pupil apodization techniques (use of an amplitude pupil mask) is proposed. It is shown that an apodized pupil suitable for imaging of Extrasolar planets can be obtained by reflection of an…
The fields of occultation and microlensing are linked historically. Early this century, occultation of the Sun by the Moon allowed the apparent positions of background stars projected near the limb of the Sun to be measured and compared…
I present a review of astrometric techniques and instrumentation utilized to search for, detect, and characterize extra-solar planets. First, I briefly summarize the properties of the present-day sample of extrasolar planets, in connection…
A star's luminosity increases as it evolves along the Main Sequence (MS), which inevitably results in a higher surface temperature for planets in orbit around the star. Technologically advanced civilizations may tackle this issue by…
High-contrast imaging observations of large angular diameter stars enable complementary science questions to be addressed compared to the baseline goals of proposed missions like the Terrestrial Planet Finder-Coronagraph, New World's…
One proposed method for finding terrestrial planets around nearby stars is to use two spacecraft--a telescope and a specially shaped occulter that is specifically designed to prevent all but a tiny fraction of the starlight from diffracting…
Starshades are a leading technology to enable the direct detection and spectroscopic characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. In an effort to advance starshade technology through system level demonstrations, the McMath-Pierce Solar…
A key challenge for starshades is formation flying. To successfully image exoplanets, the telescope boresight and starshade must be aligned to ~1 m at separations of tens of thousands of kilometers. This challenge has two parts: first, the…
The detection of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, and their spectroscopic characterization in a search for biosignatures, requires starlight suppression that exceeds the current best ground-based performance by…
Context: Observation of star occultations is a powerful tool to determine shapes and sizes of asteroids. This is key information necessary for studying the evolution of the asteroid belt and to calibrate indirect methods of size…
The astrometry technique is an important tool for detecting and characterizing exoplanets of different type. In this review, the different projects which are either operating, in construction or in discussion are presented and their…
The design of starshades, i.e. external occulters for stellar coronography, relies on the fast and precise computation of their associated diffraction patterns of incoming plane waves in the telescope aperture plane. We present here a…
The realization that direct imaging of extrasolar planets could be technologically feasible within the next decade or so has inspired a great deal of recent research into high-contrast imaging. We ourselves have contributed several design…
Occultations, the covering up of one celestial body by another celestial body, have been used in astronomy for millennia to learn about the sun and moon. Since 2018, VERITAS has implemented a program to detect predicted asteroid…