Related papers: Design Considerations for a Ground-Based Search fo…

Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…

We use $N_{t}$, the number of exoplanets observed in time $t$, as a science metric to study direct-search missions like Terrestrial Planet Finder. In our model, $N$ has 27 parameters, divided into three categories: 2 astronomical, 7…

The yields from transit surveys can be used to constrain the frequency and statistical properties of extrasolar planets. Conversely, planet frequencies can be used to estimate expected detection rates, which are critical for the planning…

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…

We begin the search for extremely-low mass ($M\leq0.3M_{\odot}$, ELM) white dwarfs (WDs) in the southern sky based on photometry from the VST ATLAS and SkyMapper surveys. We use a similar color-selection method as the Hypervelocity star…

Thueringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg (TLS) has started to operate a small dedicated telescope - the Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope (TEST) - searching for transits of extrasolar planets in photometric time series observations. In a…

A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…

The sensitivity available to near-infrared surveys has recently allowed us to probe the galaxy population at $z\approx 7$ and beyond. The existing {\em Hubble} Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for…

Observing extrasolar planetary transits is one of the only ways that we may infer the masses and radii of planets outside the Solar System. As such, the detections made by photometric transit surveys are one of the only foreseeable ways…

Terrestrial planets are commonly observed to orbit M dwarfs with close-in trajectories. In this work, we extensively perform N-body simulations of planetesimal accretion with three models of in-situ, inward migration and reversed migration…

Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST), which will begin its scientific operations around 2027, is going to survey the sky area of the median-to-high Galactic latitude and median-to-high ecliptic latitude. The high astrometric precision of…

With the prevalence of wide-field, time-domain photometric sky surveys, the number of eclipsing white dwarf systems being discovered is increasing dramatically. An efficient method to follow these up will be key to determining any…

Aims. A summary of the CoRoT brown dwarf investigations are presented. Methods. Transiting brown dwarfs around solar like stars were studied by using the photometric time-series of CoRoT, and ground based radial velocity measurements.…

A large number of direct imaging surveys for exoplanets have been performed in recent years, yielding the first directly imaged planets and providing constraints on the prevalence and distribution of wide planetary systems. However, like…

The evolution of brown dwarfs from L to T spectral types is one of the least understood aspects of the ultracool population, partly for lack of a large, well-defined, and well-characterized sample in the L/T transition. To improve the…

The Kepler Mission was launched on March 6, 2009 to perform a photometric survey of more than 100,000 dwarf stars to search for terrestrial-size planets with the transit technique. Follow-up observations of planetary candidates identified…

We present a new method to detect planetary transits from time-series photometry, the Transit Least Squares (TLS) algorithm. TLS searches for transit-like features while taking the stellar limb darkening and planetary ingress and egress…

The two Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) missions aim to perform spectroscopy on extrasolar Earths; TPF-C will operate in visible light, and TPF-I will operate in the mid-infrared. Extrasolar Earths are assumed to be roughly 26 magnitude in…

Since 2008 we have run an observational program to accurately measure the characteristics of known exoplanet systems hosting close-in transiting giant planets, i.e. hot Jupiters. Our study is based on high-quality photometric follow-up…

We present new L' (3.75 um) photometry of six L and T dwarfs, and M' (4.70 um) photometry of ten L and T dwarfs, observed at Gemini Observatory, and new 3.55, 4.49, 5.73 and 7.87 um photometry of nine L and T dwarfs, obtained with the…