Related papers: KeSeF - Kepler Self Follow-up Mission
The G0V dwarf TrES-2A, which is transited by a hot Jupiter, is one of the main short-cadence targets of the Kepler telescope and, therefore, among the photometrically best-studied planetary systems known today. Given the near-grazing…
The Kepler, K2 and TESS transit surveys are revolutionizing our understanding of planets orbiting close to their host stars and our understanding of exoplanet systems in general, but there remains a gap in our understanding of wide-orbit…
We perform a systematic search for atmospheric variability in short-period gas-giant planets (hot Jupiters) observed by the Kepler mission, by looking for temporal variability of their secondary eclipse depths. This is motivated by a recent…
During the primary Kepler mission, between 2009 and 2013, about 150,000 pre-selected targets were observed with a 29.42 minute-long cadence. However, a survey of background stars that fall within the field of view (FOV) of the downloaded…
The original Kepler mission achieved high photometric precision thanks to ultra-stable pointing enabled by use of four reaction wheels. The loss of two of these reaction wheels reduced the telescope's ability to point precisely for extended…
An earlier study of the Kepler Mission noise properties on time scales of primary relevance to detection of exoplanet transits found that higher than expected noise followed to a large extent from the stars, rather than instrument or data…
Kepler-51 is a $\lesssim 1\,\mathrm{Gyr}$-old Sun-like star hosting three transiting planets with radii $\approx 6$-$9\,R_\oplus$ and orbital periods $\approx 45$-$130\,\mathrm{days}$. Transit timing variations (TTVs) measured with past…
Though free-floating planets (FFPs) may outpopulate their bound counterparts in the terrestrial-mass range, they remain one of the least explored exoplanet demographics. Due to their negligible electromagnetic emission at all wavelengths,…
The recent observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete - if not incorrect - and that new physics is out there, waiting to be discovered.…
We present a framework to conservatively estimate the probability that any particular planet-like transit signal observed by the Kepler mission is in fact a planet, prior to any ground-based follow-up efforts. We use Monte Carlo methods…
Space missions designed for high precision photometric monitoring of stars often under-sample the point-spread function, with much of the light landing within a single pixel. Missions like MOST, Kepler, BRITE, and TESS, do this to avoid…
Kepler will monitor a sufficient number of stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the exquisite Kepler photometry of such transits with precise…
Rapidly rotating early-type main-sequence stars with transiting planets are interesting in many aspects. Unfortunately, several astrophysical effects in such systems are not well understood yet. Therefore, we performed a photometric…
High resolution imaging is an important tool for follow-up study of exoplanet candidates found via transit detection with the Kepler Mission. We discuss here HST imaging with the WFC3 of 23 stars that host particularly interesting Kepler…
The proposed field-of-view of the Kepler mission is at an ecliptic latitude of ~55 degrees, where the surface density of scattered Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) is a few percent that in the ecliptic plane. The rate of occultations of Kepler…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
While Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) covers a considerable area of the sky during routine observations and the pointing schedule is easy to follow, it is not obvious to retrieve the current and/or predicted visibility of a…
We present a search for single photometric exocomet transits using a magnitude-limited sample of stars observed by the TESS primary mission. These events are asymmetric, with a sharp ingress and more gradual egress expected because the…
The Kepler Mission was designed to identify and characterize transiting planets in the Kepler Field of View and to determine their occurrence rates. Emphasis was placed on identification of Earth-size planets orbiting in the Habitable Zone…
In this study we identify 11 Kepler systems (KIC 5255552, 5653126, 5731312, 7670617, 7821010, 8023317, 10268809, 10296163, 11519226, 11558882 and 12356914) with a "flip-flop" effect in the eclipse timing variations O-C diagrams of the…