Related papers: Starshade Exoplanet Data Challenge
Transit-spectroscopy of exoplanets is one of the key observational techniques to characterize the extrasolar planet and its atmosphere. The observational challenges of these measurements require dedicated instrumentation and only the space…
Direct imaging is the primary technique currently used to detect young and warm exoplanets and understand their formation scenarios. The extreme flux ratio between an exoplanet and its host star requires the use of coronagraphs to attenuate…
The NASA Exoplanet Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG) has undertaken an effort to define mission Level 1 requirements for exoplanet direct detection missions at a range of sizes. This report outlines the science goals and requirements for the…
Imaging terrestrial exoplanets around nearby stars is a formidable technical challenge, requiring the development of coronagraphs to suppress the stellar halo of diffracted light at the location of the planet. In this review, we derive the…
We review some aspects of the current state of data-intensive astronomy, its methods, and some outstanding data analysis challenges. Astronomy is at the forefront of "big data" science, with exponentially growing data volumes and data…
With the ever-growing number of exoplanets detected, the issue of characterization is becoming more and more relevant. Direct imaging is certainly the most efficient but the most challenging tool to probe the atmosphere of exoplanets and…
The NASA Star and Exoplanet Database (NStED) is a general purpose stellar archive with the aim of providing support for NASA's planet finding and characterization goals, stellar astrophysics, and the planning of NASA and other space…
The ultra-high contrast capability required to form images of other solar systems is arguably the highest-profile challenge in astronomy today. The current high-contrast imaging efforts all require background subtraction to separate the…
Context. High-contrast exoplanet imaging is a rapidly growing field as can be seen through the significant resources invested. In fact, the detection and characterization of exoplanets through direct imaging is featured at all major…
Stellar photospheric heterogeneity is a dominant astrophysical systematic impacting exoplanet transmission spectroscopy. NASA's Pandora SmallSat Mission is designed to address this challenge through contemporaneous visible photometry and…
Gravitational microlensing occurs when a foreground star happens to pass very close to our line of sight to a more distant background star. The foreground star acts as a lens, splitting the light from the source star into two images, which…
Context: Planetary Nebula distance scales often suffer for model dependent solutions. Model independent trigonometric parallaxes have been rare. Space based trigonometric parallaxes are now available for a larger sample using the second…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
The astrometry technique is an important tool for detecting and characterizing exoplanets of different type. In this review, the different projects which are either operating, in construction or in discussion are presented and their…
We present an overview of the EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), selected by NASA for technology development and maturation. EXCEDE will study the formation, evolution and architectures of exoplanetary…
Transit photometry is currently the most efficient and sensitive method for detecting extrasolar planets (exoplanets) and a large majority of confirmed exoplanets have been detected with this method. The substantial success of space-based…
The requirements on space missions designed to study Terrestrial exoplanets are discussed. We then investigate whether the design of such a mission, specifically the Darwin nulling interferometer, can be carried out in a simplified…
High precision differential Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that evaluates the relative position, distance and motion of celestial objects with respect to the stars present in the field of view. A mission called Theia has been…
The study of extra-solar planets, or simply, exoplanets, planets outside our own Solar System, is fundamentally a grand quest to understand our place in the Universe. Discoveries in the last two decades have re-defined our understanding of…
Missions to small celestial bodies rely heavily on optical feature tracking for characterization of and relative navigation around the target body. While deep learning has led to great advancements in feature detection and description,…