Related papers: The EChO science case
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…
Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes represent the most common class of exoplanets discovered to date in our galaxy, yet they have no direct analogues in the Solar System. Since 2014, researchers within the NCCR PlanetS have made significant…
Differential spectroscopy during exoplanet transits permits to reconstruct spectra of small stellar surface portions that successively become hidden behind the planet. The center-to-limb behavior of stellar line shapes, asymmetries and…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
The proposed Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will survey the entire sky to locate the nearest and brightest transiting extrasolar planets with orbital periods up to about 36 days. Here we estimate the number and kind of…
With over 5,000 exoplanets currently detected, there is a need for a primary classification method to prioritise candidates for biosignature observations. Here, we develop a classification method to categorise rocky exoplanets based on…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…
The upcoming TESS mission will detect thousands of candidate transiting exoplanets. Those candidates require extensive follow-up observations to distinguish genuine planets from false positives, and to resolve the physical properties of the…
We analyze data from the Quarter 1-17 Data Release 24 (Q1--Q17 DR24) planet candidate catalog from NASA's Kepler mission, specifically comparing systems with single transiting planets to systems with multiple transiting planets, and…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Exoplanets are abundant in our galaxy and yet characterizing them remains a technical challenge. Solar System planets provide an opportunity to test the practical limitations of exoplanet observations with high signal-to-noise data that we…
How can scientists conclude with high confidence that an exoplanet hosts life? As telescopes come on line over the next 20 years that can directly observe photons from terrestrial exoplanets, this question will dictate the activities of…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
This study aims to assess the potential of the upcoming PLATO mission to investigate exoplanet populations around stars in diverse Galactic environments, specifically focusing on the Milky Way thin disk, thick disk, and stellar halo. We aim…
We used the 0.5-m robotic telescopes located at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences for monitoring two square degrees of the sky with the aim of detecting new exoplanets. A dimming of the visible…
Secondary eclipse spectroscopy provides invaluable insights into the temperatures and compositions of exoplanetary atmospheres. We carry out a systematic temperature and abundance retrieval analysis of nine exoplanets (HD189733b, HD209458b,…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has been designed in order to satisfy several different scientific objectives that can be addressed by a ten-year synoptic sky survey. However, LSST will also provide a large amount of data that…
Of the over 200 known extrasolar planets, 14 exhibit transits in front of their parent stars as seen from Earth. Spectroscopic observations of the transiting planets can probe the physical conditions of their atmospheres. One such technique…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star, the confirmation of nearly 6000 exoplanets to date - and their diversity - has revolutionized our knowledge of planetary systems in the past three decades. Nevertheless,…