Related papers: Synergies between Venus & Exoplanetary Observation…
The Hesperos mission proposed in this paper is a mission to Venus to investigate the interior structure and the current level of activity. The main questions to be answered with this mission are whether Venus has an internal structure and…
Ground based observers have on 5/6th June 2012 the last opportunity of the century to watch the passage of Venus across the solar disk from Earth. Venus transits have traditionally provided unique insight into the Venus atmosphere through…
Population studies of exoplanets are key to unlocking their statistical properties. So far the inferred properties have been mostly limited to planetary, orbital and stellar parameters extracted from, e.g., Kepler, radial velocity, and GAIA…
The transit method of exoplanet discovery and characterization has enabled numerous breakthroughs in exoplanetary science. These include measurements of planetary radii, mass-radius relationships, stellar obliquities, bulk density…
The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric…
The potential detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus has reignited interest in the possibility of life aloft in this environment. If the cloud decks of Venus are indeed an abode of life, it should reside in the "habitable zone"…
Long range observations in the field of astronomy have opened up our understanding of the Solar System, the Galaxy and the wider Universe. In this paper we discuss the idea of direct in-situ reconnaissance of nearby stellar systems, using…
Historically, there is no doubt that the early years of the USSR space program put them way ahead of the competition (the USA). Nonetheless, although this was not what the Russians wished to present to the world, the interplanetary…
Since its inception six decades ago, astrobiology has diversified immensely to encompass several scientific questions including the origin and evolution of Terran life, the organic chemical composition of extraterrestrial objects, and the…
Space exploration has been on the rise since the 1960s. Along with the other planets such as Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter, Mars certainly plays a significant role in the history of space exploration and has the potential to be the…
The data of 2012 transit of Venus are compared with the ones of 2004. The thickness of the atmosphere of Venus, its aureole and the effect of oblateness and other asphericities in the figure of the Sun are taken into consideration, as well…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
Three decades ago, humanity entered the Exoplanet Era, with the discovery of the first planets orbiting other stars. Today, more than 6000 exoplanets are known - a tally recently bolstered by NASA's TESS spacecraft. Whilst TESS is an…
Currently, 20 co-orbital asteroids of Venus are known, with only one with an eccentricity below 0.38. This is most likely caused by observational biases since asteroids with larger eccentricities may approach the Earth and are easier to…
The field of exoplanetary science has emerged over the past two decades, rising up alongside traditional solar system planetary science. Both fields focus on understanding the processes which form and sculpt planets through time, yet there…
Is there any hope for us to draw a plausible picture of the future of exoplanet research? Here we extrapolate from the first 25 years of exoplanet discovery into the year 2050. If the power law for the cumulative exoplanet count continues,…
The atmosphere of a transiting planet shields the stellar radiation providing us with a powerful method to estimate its size and density. In particular, because of their high ionization energy, atoms with high atomic number (Z) absorb…
Why bother with asteroseismology while studying exoplanets? There are several answers to this question. Asteroseismology and exoplanetary sciences have much in common and the synergy between the two opens up new aspects in both fields.…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
In this introductory review presented at the IAU Symposium 253 "Transiting Planets", I summarize the path from the initial 1995 radial-velocity discovery of hot Jupiters to the current rich panoply of investigations that are afforded when…