Related papers: Direct Exoplanet Investigation using Interstellar …
The impact of exoplanet science on both the scientific community and on the general public is presented through various indicators and examples. It is estimated that about 3-4% of all refereed astronomy articles focus on exoplanets, and…
The prospects for finding transiting exoplanets in the range of a few to 20 Earth masses is growing rapidly with both ground-based and spaced-based efforts. We describe a publicly available computer code to compute and quantify the…
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…
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…
Exploring exoplanets has transformed our understanding of the universe by revealing many planetary systems that defy our current understanding. To study their atmospheres, spectroscopic observations are used to infer essential atmospheric…
The field of extrasolar planets is still, in comparison with other astrophysical topics, in its infancy. There have been about 300 or so extrasolar planets detected and their detection has been accomplished by various different techniques.…
We investigate looking for black hole starships using very high energy gamma ray telescopes. We find they would be above the threshhold of visibility although there are many unknown factors.
As a direct result of ongoing efforts to detect more exoplanetary systems, an ever-increasing number of multiple-planet systems are being announced. But how many of these systems are truly what they seem? In many cases, such systems are…
The 'Ocean Worlds' of our Solar System are covered with ice, hence the water is not directly accessible. Using melting probe technology is one of the promising technological approaches to reach those scientifically interesting water…
Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
The hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the past two decades offer a new perspective on planetary structure. Instead of being the archetypal examples of planets, those of our Solar System are merely possible outcomes of…
In this outlook we describe what could be the next steps of the direct characterization of habitable exoplanets after first the medium and large mission projects and investigate the benefits of the spectroscopic and direct imaging…
There are many competing theories and models describing the formation, migration and evolution of exoplanet systems. As both the precision with which we can characterize exoplanets and their host stars, and the number of systems for which…
Future remote sensing of exoplanets will be enhanced by a thorough investigation of our solar system Ice Giants (Neptune-size planets). What can the configuration of the magnetic field tell us (remotely) about the interior, and what…
As the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) fulfills its primary mission it is executing an unprecedented all-sky survey with the potential to discover distant planets in our own solar system, as well as hundreds of…
Precise exoplanet characterization requires precise classification of exoplanet host stars. The masses of host stars are commonly estimated by comparing their spectra to those predicted by stellar evolution models. However,…
Research into light curves from stars (temporal variation of brightness) has completely changed how exoplanets are discovered or characterised. This study including star light curves from the Kepler dataset as a way to discover exoplanets…
Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric…
So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…