Related papers: Starshade Rendezvous: Exoplanet Orbit Constraints …
Radial velocity searches for extrasolar planets have recently detected several very low mass (7-20M_Earth) planets in close orbits with periods <10 days. We consider the prospects for detecting the analogs of these planets in Galactic open…
Recent advances have enabled the discovery of a population of potentially Earth-like planets, yet their orbital eccentricity, which governs their climate and provides clues about their origin and dynamical history, is still largely…
Starshade in formation flight with a space telescope is a rapidly maturing technology that would enable imaging and spectral characterization of small planets orbiting nearby stars in the not-too-distant future. While performance models of…
We compare potential state-of-the-art experiments for detecting Earth-mass planets around main-sequence stars using radial velocities, transits, astrometry, and microlensing. For conventionally-discussed signal-to-noise ratio (S/N)…
The physical characterization of exoplanets will require to take spectra at several orbital positions. For that purpose, a direct imaging capability is necessary. Direct imaging requires an efficient stellar suppression mechanism,…
Direct imaging simulations of starshades and other proposed mission concepts are needed to characterize planet detection performance and inform mission design trades. In order to assess the complementary role of a 60 m starshade for the…
Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly closer to the star than the one around our Sun, which leads…
In the near future we will have ground- and space-based telescopes that are designed to observe and characterize Earth-like planets. While attention is focused on exoplanets orbiting main sequence stars, more than 150 exoplanets have…
High-resolution spectroscopic searches for the starlight reflected from close-in extra-solar giant planets have the capability of determining the optical albedo spectra and scattering properties of these objects. When combined with radial…
The vast diversity of planetary systems detected to date is defying our capability of understanding their formation and evolution. Well-defined volume-limited surveys are the best tool at our disposal to tackle the problem, via the…
The proposed Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will survey the entire sky to locate the nearest and brightest transiting extrasolar planets with orbital periods up to about 36 days. Here we estimate the number and kind of…
Future missions like Roman, HabEx, and LUVOIR will directly image exoplanets in reflected light. While current near infrared direct imaging searches are only sensitive to young, self-luminous planets whose brightness is independent of their…
An increasing number of potentially habitable terrestrial planets and planet candidates are found by ongoing planet search programs. The search for atmospheric signatures to establish planetary habitability and the presence of life might be…
Starshades are a leading technology to enable the detection and spectroscopic characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. In this paper we report on optical experiments of sub-scale starshades that advance critical starlight suppression…
As we begin to discover rocky planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars with missions like TESS and CHEOPS, we will need quick advancements on instrumentation and observational techniques that will enable us to answer key science…
A space-based gravitational microlensing exoplanet survey will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses greater than 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity. This includes analogs to all the…
A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. But the invitation can only be accepted if the host star is bright enough for precise measurements of its flux…
A key challenge for starshades is formation flying. To successfully image exoplanets, the telescope boresight and starshade must be aligned to ~1 m at separations of tens of thousands of kilometers. This challenge has two parts: first, the…
We investigate an in-situ formation scenario for Earth-mass terrestrial planets in short-period, potentially habitable orbits around low-mass stars (M_star < 0.3 M_sun). We then investigate the feasibility of detecting these Earth-sized…
The precision of radial velocity (RV) measurements to detect indirectly planetary companions of nearby stars has improved to enable the discovery of extrasolar planets in the Neptune and Super-Earth mass range. Discoveries of Earth-like…