Related papers: A Framework for Prioritizing the TESS Planetary Ca…

The Cosmic Shoreline concept was introduced as a way to separate planets with and without atmosphere, based on the relationship between the cumulative instellation and the escape velocity observed in the Solar System. The exoplanet…

The first opportunity to detect indications for life outside the Solar System may be provided already within the next decade with upcoming missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the European Extremely Large Telescope…

For the first time in human history the possibility of detecting and studying Earth-like planets is on the horizon. Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), with a launch date in the 2015 timeframe, is being planned by NASA to find and characterize…

The high number of planet discoveries made in the last years provides a good sample for statistical analysis, leading to some clues on the distributions of planet parameters, like masses and periods, at least in close proximity to the host…

We present the analysis of five long-period TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs), all orbiting Sun-like stars, with orbital periods exceeding one month. Initially identified by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), we extensively…

The ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Exoplanet Large-survey) mission concept is one of the three M4 mission candidates selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for a Phase A study, competing for a launch in 2026. ARIEL has been designed…

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission. Following its scheduled launch in 2017, TESS will focus on detecting exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars in the sky, for which detailed…

The upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) means that we will soon have the capability to characterize the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. However, it is still unknown whether such planets orbiting close to M dwarf stars…

With a new generation of observatories coming online this decade, the process of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres will need to be reinvented. Currently mostly on the instrumental side, characterization bottlenecks will soon stand by the…

Precise atmospheric observations have been made for a growing sample of warm Neptunes. Here we investigate the correlations between these observations and a large number of system parameters to show that, at 95% confidence, the amplitude of…

The high-precision photometry from NASA's Kepler and TESS missions has revolutionized exoplanet detection, enabling the discovery of over 5500 confirmed exoplanets via the transit method and around 10000 additional candidates awaiting…

One of the most promising avenues for the detailed study of temperate Earth-sized exoplanets is the detection of such planets in transit in front of stars small and nearby enough to make possible their thorough atmospheric characterisation…

Gas giants are the most readily detectable exoplanets but fundamental questions about their system architectures, formation, migration, and atmospheres have been unanswerable with the current generation of ground- and space-based…

The unprecedented medium-resolution (R~1500-3500) near- and mid-infrared (1-18um) spectrum provided by JWST for the young (140+/-20Myr) low-mass (12-20MJup) L-T transition (L7) companion VHS1256b gives access to a catalogue of molecular…

We explore how well James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra will likely constrain bulk atmospheric properties of transiting exoplanets. We start by modeling the atmospheres of archetypal hot Jupiter, warm Neptune, warm sub-Neptune, and…

Previous generation of instruments have the opportunity to discover thousands of extra-solar planets and more will come with the current and future planet-search missions. In order to go one step further in the characterization of…

We present the results from the first two years of the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science project, which identifies planet candidates in the TESS data by engaging members of the general public. Over 22,000 citizen scientists from around…

We quantify the scientific potential for exoplanet imaging with the Mid-infrared E-ELT Imager and Spectrograph (METIS) foreseen as one of the instruments of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). We focus on two main science cases:…

Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler…

We provide an example of an analysis to explore the optimization of observations of transiting hot jupiters with JWST to characterize their atmospheres, based on a simple three-parameter forward model. We construct expansive forward model…