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Survey strategies for upcoming exoplanet direct imaging missions have considered varying assumptions of prior knowledge. Precursor radial velocity surveys could have detected nearby exo-Earths and provided prior orbit and mass constraints.…
The direct detection of exoplanets has been the subject of intensive research in the recent years. Data obtained with future high-contrast imaging instruments optimized for giant planets direct detection are strongly limited by the speckle…
Direct imaging of exoplanets presents both significant challenges and significant gains. The advantages primarily lie in receiving emitted and, with future instruments, reflected photons at phase angles not accessible by other techniques,…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
The Kepler, K2 and TESS transit surveys are revolutionizing our understanding of planets orbiting close to their host stars and our understanding of exoplanet systems in general, but there remains a gap in our understanding of wide-orbit…
Detection of a planetary ring of exoplanets remains as one of the most attractive but challenging goals in the field. We present a methodology of a systematic search for exoplanetary rings via transit photometry of long-period planets. The…
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…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
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…
Population studies of Kepler's multi-planet systems have revealed a surprising degree of structure in their underlying architectures. Information from a detected transiting planet can be combined with a population model to make predictions…
The detection of transits is an efficient technique to uncover faint companions around stars. The full characterisation of the companions (M-type stars, brown dwarfs or exoplanets) requires high-resolution spectroscopy to measure properly…
High-resolution Doppler spectroscopy is a powerful tool for identifying molecular species in the atmospheres of both transiting and non-transiting exoplanets. Currently, such data is analysed using cross-correlation techniques to detect the…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
The photoevaporation model is one of the leading explanations for the evolution of small, close-in planets and the origin of the radius-valley. However, without planet mass measurements, it is challenging to test the photoevaporation…
Direct imaging is likely the best way to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. Previously, Stark et al. (2014, 2015, 2016) estimated the Earth twin yield of future direct imaging…
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…
Detections of massive extrasolar moons are shown feasible with the Kepler space telescope. Kepler's findings of about 50 exoplanets in the stellar habitable zone naturally make us wonder about the habitability of their hypothetical moons.…
Exoplanetary science is among the fastest evolving fields of today's astronomical research. Ground-based planet-hunting surveys alongside dedicated space missions (Kepler, CoRoT) are delivering an ever-increasing number of exoplanets, now…
In the last decade, over a million stars were monitored to detect transiting planets. Manual interpretation of potential exoplanet candidates is labor intensive and subject to human error, the results of which are difficult to quantify.…
Extrasolar planets that pass in front of their host star (transit) cause a temporary decrease in the apparent brightness of the star once per orbit, providing a direct measure of the planet's size and orbital period. In some systems with…