Related papers: Hunting exomoons with a kilometric baseline interf…
Microlensing has proven to be a valuable tool to search for extrasolar planets of Jovian- to Super-Earth-mass planets at orbits of a few AU. Since planetary signals are of very short duration, an intense and continuous monitoring is…
Recently, Teachey, Kipping, and Schmitt (2018) reported the detection of a candidate exomoon, tentatively designated Kepler-1625b I, around a giant planet in the Kepler field. The candidate exomoon would be about the size and mass of…
While no conclusive detections of exomoons have been reported to date, planet formation theories predict that satellites should be a common outcome of the collisional dynamics in early extrasolar systems. Such satellites have the potential…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The formation of satellites is thought to be a natural by-product of planet formation in our Solar System, and thus, moons of extrasolar planets (exomoons) may be abundant in extrasolar planetary systems, as well. Exomoons have yet to be…
The search for habitable conditions beyond Earth is a top priority in astrophysics. The discovery of habitable exoplanets beyond our solar system will require a suite of instruments providing long-term monitoring for detection (e.g. with…
Interstellar radar is a potential intermediate step between passive observation of exoplanets and interstellar exploratory missions. Compared to passive observation, it has the traditional advantages of radar astronomy. It can measure…
Exo-zodiacal dust, exozodi for short, is warm (~300K) or hot (up to ~2000K) dust found in the inner regions of planetary systems around main sequence stars. In analogy to our own zodiacal dust, it may be located in or near the habitable…
M dwarfs host most of the exoplanets in the local Milky Way. Some of these planets, ranging from sub-Earths to super-Jupiters, orbit in their stars' habitable zones (HZs), although many likely possess surface environments that preclude…
Cosmology with large interferometric telescopes is a rich and largely unexplored subject, involving three types of measurement: astrometric measurement of absolute distances and proper motions, dispersions of relative proper motions, and…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
Exomoons are the natural satellites of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, of which there are currently no confirmed examples. We present new observations of a candidate exomoon associated with Kepler-1625b using the Hubble…
The holy grail of exoplanet searches is an exo-Earth, an Earth mass planet in the habitable zone around a nearby star. Mass is the most important parameter of a planet and can only be measured by observing the motion of the star around the…
Searching for exoplanets with different methods has always been the focus of astronomers over the past few years. Among multiple planet detection techniques, astrometry stands out for its capability to accurately determine the orbital…
Active comets have been detected in several exoplanetary systems, although so far only indirectly, when the dust or gas in the extended coma has transited in front of the stellar disk. The large optical surface and relatively high…
(Aims) We investigate whether volcanic exomoons can be detected in thermal wavelength light curves due to their phase variability along their orbit. The method we use is based on the photometric signal variability that volcanic features or…
We evaluate the direct detection of extrasolar giant planets with a two-aperture nulling infrared interferometer, working at angles ${\theta}<{\lambda}/2B$, and using a new `ratio-of-two-wavelengths' technique. Simple arguments suggest that…
Long baseline radio interferometers can provide some interesting opportunities for future SETI searches. Known advantages (compared to single dishes or beam-formed arrays), include the large reduction in false-positives due to the…
We propose a method to detect exoplanets based on their host star's intensity centroid after it passes thru a vortex filter. Based on our calculations with planets in face-on orbits, exoplanets with relative proximity to their host stars…
Exomoons represent a crucial missing puzzle piece in our efforts to understand extrasolar planetary systems. To address this deficiency, we here describe an exomoon survey of 70 cool, giant transiting exoplanet candidates found by Kepler.…