Related papers: Obliquities of Exoplanet Host Stars from Precise D…
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…
New insights on stellar evolution and stellar interiors physics are being made possible by asteroseismology. Throughout the course of the Kepler mission, asteroseismology has also played an important role in the characterization of…
A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. But the invitation can only be accepted if the host star is bright enough for precise measurements of its flux…
Both direct and indirect methods of exoplanet detection rely upon detailed knowledge of the potential host stars. Such stellar characterization allows for accurate extraction of planetary properties, as well as contributing to our overall…
The transit method of exoplanet discovery and characterization has enabled numerous breakthroughs in exoplanetary science. These include measurements of planetary radii, mass-radius relationships, stellar obliquities, bulk density…
The radius of a planet is a fundamental parameter that probes its composition and habitability. Precise radius measurements are typically derived from the fraction of starlight blocked when a planet transits its host star. The wide-field…
The current orbital geometries of exoplanet systems offer a fossilized record of the systems' dynamical histories. A particularly rich set of dynamical mechanisms is available to exoplanets residing in multi-star systems, which may have…
The rotation of a star and the revolutions of its planets are not necessarily aligned. This article reviews the measurement techniques, key findings, and theoretical interpretations related to the obliquities (spin-orbit angles) of…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will search for planets transiting bright and nearby stars. TESS has been selected by NASA for launch in 2017 as an Astrophysics Explorer mission. The spacecraft will be placed into a highly…
The distribution of stellar obliquities provides critical insight into the formation and evolution pathways of exoplanets. In the past decade, it was found that hot stars hosting hot Jupiters are more likely to have high obliquities than…
Results on the obliquity of exoplanet host stars -- the angle between the stellar spin axis and the planetary orbital axis -- provide important diagnostic information for theories describing planetary formation. Here we present the first…
The angle between the rotation and orbital axes of stars in binary systems -- the obliquity -- is an important indicator of how these systems form and evolve but few such measurements exist. We combine the sample of astrometric orbital…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is conducting a two-year wide-field survey searching for transiting exoplanets around nearby bright stars that will be ideal for follow-up characterization. To facilitate studies of planet…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA-sponsored Explorer mission that will perform a wide-field survey for planets that transit bright host stars. Here, we predict the properties of the transiting planets that TESS will…
Asteroseismology is among the most powerful observational tools to determine fundamental properties of stars. Space-based photometry has recently enabled the systematic detection of oscillations in exoplanet host stars, allowing a…
The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at…
The demographics of young exoplanets can shed light onto their formation and evolution processes. Exoplanet properties are derived from the properties of their host stars. As such, it is important to accurately characterize the host stars…
Driven largely by multiple ground-based radial-velocity (RV) surveys and photometric space missions such as Kepler and K2, the discovery of new exoplanets has increased rapidly since the early 2000s. However, due to a target selection bias…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has a goal of detecting small planets orbiting stars bright enough for mass determination via ground-based radial velocity observations. Here we present estimates of how many exoplanets the…
Transit observations have found the majority of exoplanets to date. Spectroscopic observations of transits and eclipses are the most commonly used tool to characterize exoplanet atmospheres and will be used in the search for life. However,…