Related papers: Exocomets size distribution in the $\beta$ Pictori…
Transiting planet discoveries have largely been restricted to the short-period or low-periastron distance regimes due to the bias inherent in the geometric transit probability. Through the refinement of planetary orbital parameters, and…
In 1981, Beta Pictoris showed strong and rapid photometric variations that were attributed to the transit of a giant comet or a planet orbiting at several AUs (Lecavelier des Etangs et al. 1994, 1995, 1997; Lamers et al. 1997). Recently, a…
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…
Planets and their host stars carry a long-term memory of their origin in their chemical compositions. Thus, identifying planets formed in different environments improves our understating of planetary formation. Although restricted to…
We have recently hit the milestone of 5,000 exoplanets discovered. In stark contrast with the Solar System, most of the exoplanets we know to date orbit extremely close to their host stars, causing them to lose copious amounts of gas…
When we are fortunate enough to view an exoplanetary system nearly edge-on, the star and planet periodically eclipse each other. Observations of eclipses (transits and occultations) provide a bonanza of information that cannot be obtained…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
Disintegrating planets allow for the unique opportunity to study the composition of the interiors of small, hot, rocky exoplanets because the interior is evaporating and that material is condensing into dust, which is being blown away and…
Today's most detailed characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is accessible via transit spectroscopy (TS). Detecting transiting exoplanets only yields their size, and it is thus standard to measure a planet's mass before moving towards…
A warm/hot dust component (at temperature $>$ 300K) has been detected around $\sim$ 20% of stars. This component is called "exozodiacal dust" as it presents similarities with the zodiacal dust detected in our Solar System, even though its…
We report on the measurement of transit times for the HD 209458 planetary system from photometry obtained with the MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) space telescope. Deviations from a constant orbital period can indicate 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…
Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…
Understanding the distribution and occurrence rate of small planets was a fundamental goal of the Kepler transiting exoplanet mission, and could be improved with K2 and TESS. Deriving accurate exoplanetary radii requires accurate…
We have conducted an angular differential imaging survey with NIRC2 at Keck in search of close-in substellar companions to a sample of seven systems with confirmed planetary-mass companions (PMCs) on wide orbits (>50 AU). These…
Observations of debris disks offer a window into the physical and dynamical properties of planetesimals in extrasolar systems through the size distribution of dust grains. In particular, the millimeter spectral index of thermal dust…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is an all-sky survey mission aiming to search for exoplanets that transit bright stars. The high-quality photometric data of TESS are excellent for the asteroseismic study of solar-like…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…