Related papers: Exoplanet Vision 2050
Circumbinary planets are generally more likely to transit than equivalent single-star planets, but practically the geometry and orbital dynamics of circumbinary planets make the chance of observing a transit inherently time-dependent. In…
The study of transiting extrasolar planets is only 15 years old, but has matured into a rich area of research. I review the observational aspects of this work, concentrating on the discovery of transits, the characterisation of planets from…
The interpretation of the origin of observed exoplanets is usually done only qualitatively due to uncertainties of key parameters in planet formation models. To allow a quantitative methodology which traces back in time to the planet birth…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
Earth's future detectability depends upon the trajectory of our civilization over the coming centuries. Human civilization is also the only known example of an energy-intensive civilization, so our history and future trajectories provide…
Detecting exoplanet transits at X-ray wavelengths would provide a window into the effects of high energy irradiation on the upper atmospheres of planets. However, stars are relatively dim in the X-ray, making exoplanet transit detections…
The Gaia space project, planned for launch in 2011, is one of the ESA cornerstone missions, and will provide astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic data of very high quality for about one billion stars brighter than V=20. This will…
Royal Society Discussion Meeting (2013) `Characterizing exoplanets'. Of the 900+ confirmed exoplanets discovered since 1995 for which we have constraints on their mass (i.e., not including Kepler candidates), 75% have masses larger than…
We revisit the discovery and implications of the first candidate systems to contain multiple transiting exoplanets. These systems were discovered using data from the Kepler space telescope. The initial paper, presenting five systems…
The next generation of space-based observatories will characterize the atmospheres of low-mass, temperate exoplanets with the direct-imaging technique. This will be a major step forward in our understanding of exoplanet diversity and the…
Aims: We predict the exoplanet yield of a space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer using Monte Carlo simulations. We quantify the number and properties of detectable exoplanets and identify those target stars that have the highest or…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
A general model is proposed to explain the relation between the extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) detected until June 2008 and the main characteristics of their host stars through statistical techniques. The main goal is to establish a…
Many ground-based photometric surveys are now under way, and five of them have been successful at detecting transiting exoplanets. Nevertheless, detecting transiting planets has turned out to be much more challenging than initially…
The wealth of information in the Gaia catalogue of exoplanets will constitute a fundamental contribution to several hot topics of the astrophysics of planetary systems. I briefly review the potential impact of Gaia micro-arsec astrometry in…
Although nearly 6,000 exoplanets are currently known, in most cases our knowledge is limited to a handful of the planet's orbital characteristics and bulk properties such as radius and mass. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can expand…
The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric…
We present a prediction of the transiting exoplanet yield of the TESS primary mission, in order to guide follow-up observations and science projects utilizing TESS discoveries. Our new simulations differ from previous work by using (1) an…
Giant planets within the habitable zones of the closest several stars can currently be imaged with ground-based telescopes. Within the next decade, the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will begin to image the habitable zones of a greater…
It is plausible that most of the Stars in the Milky Way (MW) Galaxy, like the Sun, consist of planetary systems, instead of a single planet. Out of the estimately discovered 3,950 planet-hosting stars, about 860 of them are known to be…