Related papers: The 55 Cancri System: Fundamental Stellar Paramete…
Earth-sized planets transiting M dwarf stars present one of the best opportunities with current facilities for studying the atmospheric and bulk compositions of terrestrial worlds. Here, we statistically validate five new transiting Earth…
Given the considerable percentage of stars that are members of binaries or stellar multiples in the Solar neighborhood, it is expected that many of these binaries host planets, possibly even habitable ones. The discovery of a terrestrial…
A photometric study of variable stars in the field of old open cluster NGC 188 is discussed. Observations were carried out in two bands R and I for 5513 stars up to R = 17 mag in the field of 1.5 x 1.5 grad. around the cluster. The…
Determining whether Earth-like planets are common or rare looms as a touchstone in the question of life in the universe. We searched for Earth-size planets that cross in front of their host stars by examining the brightness measurements of…
We present the validation and characterization of Kepler-61b: a 2.15 R_Earth planet orbiting near the inner edge of the habitable zone of a low-mass star. Our characterization of the host star Kepler-61 is based upon a comparison with the…
The recent detection of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, Trappist-1 and many other nearby M-type stars has led to speculations, whether liquid water and life actually exist on these planets. To a large extent,…
We report on the detection of infrared light from the super-Earth 55 Cnc e, based on four occultations obtained with Warm Spitzer at 4.5 microns. Our data analysis consists of a two-part process. In a first step, we perform individual…
In fulfilling the aims of the planetary and asteroseismic research missions, such as that of the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope, accurate stellar atmospheric parameters and a detailed chemical composition…
We measured the angular diameter of the exoplanet host star iota Dra with Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array interferometer, and, using the star's parallax and photometry from the…
We present the first results of an extensive spectroscopic survey of directly imaged planet host stars. The goal of the survey is the measurement of stellar properties and abundances of 15 elements (including C, O, and S) in these stars. In…
On 1 February 2011 the Kepler Mission released data for 156,453 stars observed from the beginning of the science observations on 2 May through 16 September 2009. There are 1235 planetary candidates with transit like signatures detected in…
We present analysis of a Chandra observation of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4555. The galaxy lies in a very low density environment, either isolated from all galaxies of similar mass or on the outskirts of a group. Despite this, NGC 4555 has…
JWST observations provide for the first time evidence for an atmosphere on a rocky exoplanet - 55 Cnc e. The atmosphere of 55 Cnc e is hot with $\text{T}_{\text{eq}}>2000$K and shows strong variability, for which cloud formation above a…
Proxima b is a planet with a minimum mass of 1.3 MEarth orbiting within the habitable zone (HZ) of Proxima Centauri, a very low-mass, active star and the Sun's closest neighbor. Here we investigate a number of factors related to the…
Based on CHARA Array measurements, we present the angular diameters of 23 nearby, main- sequence stars, ranging from spectral type A7 to K0, five of which are exoplanet host stars. We derive linear radii, effective temperatures, and…
We numerically investigate the dynamics of rotation of several close-in terrestrial exoplanet candidates. In our model, the rotation of the planet is disturbed by the torque of the central star due to the asymmetric equilibrium figure of…
We used the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer to measure the limb-darkened angular diameter of the exoplanet host star kappa CrB and obtained a value of 1.543 +/- 0.009 mas. We calculated its physical radius (5.06 +/- 0.04 R_Sun) and…
The galactic habitable zone is defined as the region with sufficient abundance of heavy elements to form planetary systems in which Earth-like planets could be born and might be capable of sustaining life, after surviving to close supernova…
K2 space observations recently found that three super-Earths transit the nearby M dwarf K2-3. The apparent brightness and the small physical radius of their host star rank these planets amongst the most favourable for follow-up…
Aims: The planetary system around the M star Gliese 581 consists of a hot Neptune (Gl 581b) and two super-Earths (Gl 581c and Gl 581d). The habitability of this system with respect to the super-Earths is investigated following a concept…