Related papers: Direct Exoplanet Investigation using Interstellar …
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
Cosmos has always sparked human curiosity to unveil and speculate its fascinating secrets. This curiosity has ultimately opened a window to other worlds. After years of observation, computation, and data analysis, scientists have revealed…
Direct measurement of acceleration is a key scientific goal for both cosmology and exoplanets. For cosmology, the concept of redshift drift (more than 60 years old by the 2020s) could directly establish the…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
Interest among astronomers in the detection of extra-solar planets is accelerating with the growing realization that it may soon be technically feasible. The ongoing renaissance in telescope construction and the anticipated launches of new…
Co-orbital exoplanets are a by-product of the models of formation of planetary systems. However, none have been detected in nature thus far. Although challenging, the observation of co-orbital exoplanets would provide valuable information…
Specially-designed microlensing searches, some of which have been underway for several years, are sensitive to extrasolar planets orbiting the most common stars in our Galaxy. Microlensing is particularly well-suited to the detection of…
There are different methods for finding exoplanets such as radial spectral shifts, astrometrical measurements, transits, timing etc. Gravitational microlensing (including pixel-lensing) is among the most promising techniques with the…
The design of mission scenarios for the flyby investigation of nearby star systems by probes launched using directed energy is addressed. Multiple probes are launched with a fixed launch infrastructure, and download of scientific data…
It is difficult to study the interiors of terrestrial planets in the Solar System and the problem is magnified for distant exoplanets. However, sometimes nature is helpful. Some planetary bodies are torn to fragments and consumed by the…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
The study of planets beyond the solar system and the search for other habitable planets and life is just beginning. Ground-based (radial velocity and transits) and space-based surveys (transits and astrometry) will identify planets spanning…
With manual searching processes, the rate at which scientists and astronomers discover exoplanets is slow because of inefficiencies that require an extensive time of laborious inspections. In fact, as of now there have been about only 5,000…
Direct detection, also known as direct imaging, is a method for discovering and characterizing the atmospheres of planets at intermediate and wide separations. It is the only means of obtaining spectra of non-transiting exoplanets.…
The disciplines of asteroseismology and extrasolar planet science overlap methodically in the branch of high-precision photometric time series observations. Light curves are, amongst others, useful to measure intrinsic stellar variability…
EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is due to NASA at the end of calendar 2018. We are tasked with…
Precise measurements of a star's radial velocity (RV) made using extremely stable, high resolution, optical or near infrared spectrographs can be used to determine the masses and orbital parameters of gravitationally-bound extra-solar…
With about 700 confirmed extrasolar planets, it is time to move beyond discovery and towards characterization. Perhaps the most basic parameter of an extrasolar planet is its mass; however, this is very difficult to determine if the planet…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
Numerous telescopes and techniques have been used to find and study extrasolar planets, but none has been more successful than NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler has discovered the majority of known exoplanets, the smallest planets to…