Related papers: Hunting exomoons with a kilometric baseline interf…
Detections of massive extrasolar moons are shown feasible with the Kepler space telescope. Kepler's findings of about 50 exoplanets in the stellar habitable zone naturally make us wonder about the habitability of their hypothetical moons.…
All-sky imaging surveys have identified several dozen isolated planetary-mass objects (IPMOs), far away from any star. Here, we examine the prospects for detecting transiting moons around these objects. We expect transiting moons to be…
Exoplanet research has shown an incessant growth since the first claim of a hot giant planet around a solar-like star in the mid-1990s. Today, the new facilities are working to spot the first habitable rocky planets around low-mass stars as…
Direct imaging of extrasolar planets with future space-based coronagraphic telescopes may provide a means of detecting companion moons at wavelengths where the moon outshines the planet. We propose a detection strategy based on the…
The search for extrasolar planets is strongly motivated by the goal of characterizing how frequent habitable worlds and life may be within the Galaxy. Whilst much effort has been spent on searching for Earth-like planets, large moons may…
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…
Since the discovery of a planet transiting its host star in the year 2000, thousands of additional exoplanets and exoplanet candidates have been detected, mostly by NASA's Kepler space telescope. Some of them are almost as small as the…
Exoplanets mass measurements will be a critical next step to assess the habitability of Earth-like planets: a key aspect of the 2020 vision in the previous decadal survey and also central to NASA's strategic priorities. Precision astrometry…
The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former…
We examined which exo-systems contain moons that may be detected in transit. We numerically modeled transit light curves of Earth-like and giant planets that cointain moons with 0.005--0.4 Earth-mass. The orbital parameters were randomly…
Despite years of high accuracy observations, none of the available theoretical techniques has yet allowed the confirmation of a moon beyond the solar system. Methods are currently limited to masses about an order of magnitude higher than…
The direct observation of extrasolar planets and their spectra is coming into reach with the new generation of ground-based near-IR interferometers, like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The high contrast between star and…
One of the long-term goals of exoplanet science is the atmospheric characterization of dozens of small exoplanets in order to understand their diversity and search for habitable worlds and potential biosignatures. Achieving this goal…
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…
The circumplanetary environments in our Solar System host a stunning array of moon and ring systems. Study of these environs has yielded valuable insights into planetary system formation and evolution, and there is every reason to believe…
Exomoons represent an outstanding challenge in modern astronomy, with the potential to provide rich insights into planet formation theory and habitability. In this work, we stack the phase-folded transits of 284 viable moon hosting Kepler…
Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric…
Modern radio astrometry has reached the limit of the resolution that is determined by the size of the Earth. The only way to overcome that limit is to create the radio telescopes outside our planet. It is proposed to build an autonomous…
We present the first microlensing candidate for a free-floating exoplanet-exomoon system, MOA-2011-BLG-262, with a primary lens mass of M_host ~ 4 Jupiter masses hosting a sub-Earth mass moon. The data are well fit by this exomoon model,…
Exoplanets with and without a magnetic field are predicted to form, behave, and evolve very differently. Therefore, there is great need to directly constrain these fields to holistically understand the properties of exoplanets including…