Related papers: Science Merit Function for the KEPLER Mission

We describe statistical methods for measuring the exoplanet multiplicity function - the fraction of host stars containing a given number of planets - from transit and radial-velocity surveys. The analysis is based on the approximation of…

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has collected high-precision, high-cadence time series photometry on 781,590 unique postage-stamp targets across 21 different fields of view. These observations have already yielded 2,496 scientific…

The Solar System includes two planets --- Mercury and Mars --- significantly less massive than Earth, and all evidence indicates that planets of similar size orbit many stars. In fact, one of the first exoplanets to be discovered is a…

We report the masses, sizes, and orbital properties of 86 planets orbiting 55 stars observed by NASA's K2 Mission with follow-up Doppler measurements by the HIRES spectrometer at the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Automated Planet Finder at…

The Kepler Spacecraft has discovered a large number of planets up to one-year periods and down to terrestrial sizes. While the majority of the target stars are main-sequence dwarfs of spectral type F, G, and K, Kepler covers stars with…

A large fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) may host planets in their habitable zones. These planets may provide our best chance to detect bio-markers on a transiting exoplanet, thanks to the diminished contrast ratio between the Earth-sized WD…

For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…

New insights on stellar evolution and stellar interiors physics are being made possible by asteroseismology. Throughout the course of the Kepler mission, asteroseismology has also played an important role in the characterization of…

The photometric precision, monitoring baselines, and rapid, even sampling rates required by modern satellites designed for detecting the signal of transiting exoplanets are ideally suited to a large number of applications in high-energy…

The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…

The NASA Kepler mission is providing an unprecedented set of asteroseismic data. In particular, short-cadence lightcurves (~60s samplings), allow us to study solar-like stars covering a wide range of masses, spectral types and evolutionary…

A key component of characterizing multi-planet exosystems is testing the orbital stability based on the observed properties. Such characterization not only tests the validity of how observations are interpreted but can also place additional…

Tracing the formation and evolution of all supermassive black holes, including the obscured ones, understanding how black holes influence their surroundings and how matter behaves under extreme conditions, are recognized as key science…

The Kepler mission has provided a treasure trove of eclipsing binaries (EBs), observed at extremely high photometric precision, nearly continuously for several years. We are carrying out a survey of ~100 of these EBs to derive dynamical…

Do white dwarfs host asteroid systems? Although several lines of argument suggest that white dwarfs may be orbited by large populations of asteroids, transits would provide the most direct evidence. We demonstrate that the Kepler mission…

The recently approved NASA K2 mission has the potential to multiply by an order of magnitude the number of short-period transiting planets found by Kepler around bright and low-mass stars, and to revolutionise our understanding of stellar…

The Exoplanet Exploration Program (ExEP) is chartered by the NASA Astrophysics Division to carry out science, research, and technology tasks that advance NASA's science goals for exoplanets. The ExEP Science Gap List is a compilation of…

Kepler's immense photometric precision to date was maintained through satellite stability and precise pointing. In this white paper, we argue that image modeling--fitting the Kepler-downlinked raw pixel data--can vastly improve the…

The Kepler mission is dramatically increasing the number of planets known in multi-planetary systems. Many adjacent planets have orbital period ratios near resonant values, with a tendency to be larger than required for exact first-order…

Automatic scheduling techniques are becoming a crucial tool for the efficient planning of large astronomical surveys. A specific scheduling method is being designed and developed for the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet…