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We highlight how guaranteed time observations (GTOs) and early release science (ERS) will advance understanding of exoplanet atmospheres and provide a glimpse into what transiting exoplanet science will be done with JWST during its first…
The quest for atmospheric spectral signatures that may witness biological activity in exoplanets is focused on rocky planets. The best targets for future, challenging spectroscopic observations will be selected among potentially habitable…
In astronomy, we are witnessing an enormous increase in the number of source detections, precision, and diversity of measurements. Additionally, multi-epoch data is becoming the norm, making time-series analyses an important aspect of…
Gaia is a very ambitious mission of the European Space Agency. At the heart of Gaia lie the measurements of the positions, distances, space motions, brightnesses and astrophysical parameters of stars, which represent fundamental pillars of…
The study of extrasolar planets and of the Solar System provides complementary pieces of the mosaic represented by the process of planetary formation. Exoplanets are essential to fully grasp the huge diversity of outcomes that planetary…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
Various techniques are being used to search for extra-solar planetary signatures, including accurate measurement of radial velocity and positional (astrometric) displacements, gravitational microlensing, and photometric transits. Planned…
The field of exoplanetary science is making rapid progress both in statistical studies of exoplanet properties as well as in individual characterization. As space missions provide an emerging picture of formation and evolution of…
Atmospheres of transiting extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) such as HD 209458 b must impose features on the spectra of their parent stars during transits; these features contain information about the physical conditions and chemical…
The search for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the Solar System is one of the most compelling scientific opportunities of our time. Nevertheless, the high cost of building facilities that can address this topic and the keen public…
We review the field of exoplanetary biosignatures with a main focus upon atmospheric gas-phase species. Due to the paucity of data in Earth-like planetary atmospheres a common approach is to extrapolate knowledge from the Solar System and…
Exoplanet science is one of the most thriving fields of modern astrophysics. A major goal is the atmospheric characterization of dozens of small, terrestrial exoplanets in order to search for signatures in their atmospheres that indicate…
Galactic Archeology is about exploring the Milky Way as a galaxy by, mainly, using its (old) stars as tracers of past events and thus figure out the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. I will briefly outline some of the key scientific…
Stellar clusters are important for astrophysics in many ways, for instance as optimal tracers of the Galactic populations to which they belong or as one of the best test bench for stellar evolutionary models. Gaia DR1, with TGAS, is just…
Direct measurements of the spectra of extrasolar giant planets are the keys to determining their physical and chemical nature. The goal of theory is to provide the tools and context with which such data are understood. It is only by putting…
Motivation: ESAs goal to detect biomarkers in Earth-like exoplanets in the Habitable Zone requires theoretical groundwork that needs to be done to model the influence of different parameters on the detectable biomarkers. We need to model a…
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
The recently adopted Ariel ESA mission will measure the atmospheric composition of a large number of exoplanets. This information will then be used to better constrain planetary bulk compositions. While the connection between the…
Gaia is a fully-approved all-sky astrometric and photometric survey due for launch in 2011. It will measure accurate parallaxes and proper motions for everything brighter than G=20 (ca. 10^9 stars). Its primary objective is to study the…
Transmission spectroscopy has proven to be an effective technique for characterizing exoplanet atmospheres. However, transmission spectroscopy requires planetary transits, which occur for only a small fraction of planetary systems due to…