Related papers: Paths to Robust Exoplanet Science Yield Margin for…

The HWO Target Stars and Systems 2025 (TSS25) list is a community-developed catalog of potential stellar targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) in its survey to directly image Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone. The TSS25…

Exoplanetary science is increasingly prioritizing efforts toward direct imaging of planetary systems, with emphasis on those that may enable the detection and characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets. The recent 2020 Astronomy…

The Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 (Astro2020) has recommended that NASA realize a large IR/O/UV space telescope optimized for high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of ~25 exo-Earths and transformative general…

Future NASA concept missions that are currently under study, like Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx) & Large Ultra-Violet Optical Infra Red (LUVOIR) Surveyor, would discover a large diversity of exoplanets. We propose here a…

Future space telescopes may be able to directly image $\sim$10 - 100 planets with sizes and orbits consistent with habitable surface conditions ("exo-Earth candidates" or EECs), but observers will face difficulty in distinguishing these…

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to telescopically constrain the frequency and abundance of biospheres in the solar neighborhood. Origin-of-life theories vary in their predictions for the environmental requirements and the…

As part of NASA's mission to explore habitable planets orbiting nearby stars, this paper explores the detection and characterization capabilities of a 4-m space telescope plus 50-m starshade located at the Earth-Sun L2 point, a.k.a. the New…

Giant planets in the habitable zone may host exomoons with conditions conducive to life. In this paper we describe a method by which the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) could detect such moons: broadband reflected-light lunar eclipses…

Will future direct imaging missions such as NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) be able to understand Earth-sized planets as a population? In this study, we simulate the ability of space-based coronagraphy missions to uncover…

Future direct imaging space telescopes, such as NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), will be the first capable of both detecting and characterizing terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones (HZ) of nearby Sun-like stars. Since…

We develop a method for predicting the yield of transiting planets from a photometric survey given the parameters of the survey (nights observed, bandpass, exposure time, telescope aperture, locations of the target fields, observational…

The Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is the next NASA astrophysics flagship mission, to follow the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The WFIRST mission was chosen as the top-priority large space mission of the 2010 astronomy…

Astrometry, one of the oldest branches of astronomy, has been revolutionized by missions like Hipparcos and especially Gaia, which mapped billions of stars with extraordinary precision. However, challenges such as detecting Earth-like…

Future telescopes will survey temperate, terrestrial exoplanets to estimate the frequency of habitable ($\eta_{\text{Hab}}$) or inhabited ($\eta_{\text{Life}}$) planets. This study aims to determine the minimum number of planets ($N$)…

Among the many recommendations of the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020, we found that a priority area of research is to pave the pathways towards finding and characterizing habitable worlds. In this context, we aim to…

The search for life beyond the Solar System remains a primary goal of current and near-future missions, including NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). However, research into determining the habitability of terrestrial…

One of the primary science goals of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) as defined by the Astro2020 decadal survey is the imaging of the first Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star. A key technology gap towards reaching this goal are…

Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler…

Planets with large bodies of water on their surface will have more temperate and stable climates, and such planets are the ideal places for life-as-we-know-it to arise and evolve. A key science case for the Habitable Worlds Observatory…

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize our understanding of planetary formation and evolution. The goal of this Science Case Development Document (SCDD) is to investigate the physical and…