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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…
Photometric transit surveys promise to complement the currently known sample of extra-solar planets by providing additional information on the planets and especially their radii. Here we present extra-solar planet (ESP) candidates from one…
An outstanding, multi-disciplinary goal of modern science is the study of the diversity of potentially Earth-like planets and the search for life in them. This goal requires a bold new generation of space telescopes, but even the most…
Precipitable water vapour (PWV) strongly affects the quality of data obtained from millimetre- and submillimetre-wave astronomical observations, such as those for cosmic microwave background measurements. Some of these observatories have…
Precision infrared photometry from Spitzer has enabled the first direct studies of light from extrasolar planets, via observations at secondary eclipse in transiting systems. Current Spitzer results include the first longitudinal…
A primary scientific goal of the future Habitable Worlds Observatory will be the direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets. Estimates of the exoplanet yields for this concept will help guide mission design through detailed…
Because of the recent technological advances, the key technologies needed for precision space optical astrometry are now in hand. The Microarcsecond Astrometry Probe (MAP) mission concept is designed to find 1 Earth mass planets at 1AU…
Near-IR observations are important for the detection and characterization of exoplanets using the transit technique, either in surveys of large numbers of stars or for follow-up spectroscopic observations of individual planets. In a…
[Abridged] It is expected that the ongoing and future space-borne planet survey missions including TESS, PLATO, and Earth 2.0 will detect thousands of small to medium-sized planets via the transit technique, including over a hundred…
The most important limitation for ground-based submillimetre (submm) astronomy is the broad-band absorption of the total water vapour in the atmosphere above an observation site, often expressed as the Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV). A…
We present design considerations for a ground-based survey for transiting exoplanets around L and T dwarfs, spectral classes that have yet to be thoroughly probed for planets. We simulate photometry for L and T targets with a variety of…
The next few years will be critical for technology development for Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) in its mission to search for and characterize extrasolar planets. To achieve its stated goals with contrasts of one part in ten billion,…
Doppler spectroscopy has uncovered or confirmed all the known planets orbiting nearby stars. Two main techniques are used to obtain precision Doppler measurements at optical wavelengths. The first approach is the gas cell method, which…
A next generation of space-based observatories aims to detect and characterize potentially Earth-like exoplanets around Sun-like stars using reflected light spectroscopy. However, it remains unclear how such direct imaging…
Future radial velocity, astrometric, and direct-imaging surveys will find nearby Earth-sized planets within the habitable zone in the near future. How can we search for water and oxygen in those nontransiting planets? We show that a…
The mission of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and characterize the atmospheres of these planets using spectroscopy. Because of the enormous brightness ratio between the star and the…
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…
A goal of the future Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is to directly image and spectroscopically characterize true Earth-analogs. However, if a large fraction of HWO target stars host unknown dynamically disruptive giant planets in their…
This study presents a comprehensive system analysis for an instrument onboard the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), designed for high-precision, high-accuracy differential astrometry, with the primary scientific goal to determine the mass…
The Twinkle space telescope has been designed for the characterisation of exoplanets and Solar System objects. Operating in a low Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit, Twinkle is equipped with a 45 cm telescope and visible (0.4 - 1um) and infrared…