Related papers: Planetary Radar at the Arecibo Observatory
The currently feasible method of detection of Earth-mass planets is transit photometry, with detection probability decreasing with a planet's distance from the star. The existence or otherwise of short-period terrestrial planets will tell…
In 2005, the United States Congress passed a bill mandating the detection, tracking, cataloguing and characterization of 90\% of the 140 meter and larger near-Earth objects (NEOs) by 2020. At the deadline $\sim$35\% were detected, tracked…
Microlensing has recently proven to be a valuable tool to search for extrasolar planets of Neptune- to super-Earth-mass planets at orbits of few AU. Since planetary signals are of very short duration, an intense and continuous monitoring is…
EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is due to NASA at the end of calendar 2018. We are tasked with…
Photometry from the Helios and STEREO spacecraft revealed regions of enhanced sky surface-brightness suggesting a narrow circumsolar ring of dust associated with Venus's orbit. We model this phenomenon by integrating the orbits of…
A measurement by microlensing of the planetary mass function of planets with masses ranging from 5M_E to 10M_J and orbital radii from 0.5 to 10 AU was reported recently. A strategy for extending the mass range down to (1-3)M_E is proposed…
Among various techniques to search for extra-solar planets, microlensing has some unique characteristics. Contrary to all other methods which favour nearby objects, microlensing is sensitive to planets around stars at distances of several…
Occultations, the covering up of one celestial body by another celestial body, have been used in astronomy for millennia to learn about the sun and moon. Since 2018, VERITAS has implemented a program to detect predicted asteroid…
Aims. To date, more than 600 multi-planetary systems have been discovered. Due to the limitations of the detection methods, our knowledge of the systems is usually far from complete. In particular, for planetary systems discovered with the…
We compare potential state-of-the-art experiments for detecting Earth-mass planets around main-sequence stars using radial velocities, transits, astrometry, and microlensing. For conventionally-discussed signal-to-noise ratio (S/N)…
While Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) covers a considerable area of the sky during routine observations and the pointing schedule is easy to follow, it is not obvious to retrieve the current and/or predicted visibility of a…
The planets Uranus and Neptune with small apparent diameters are primary calibration standards. We investigate their variability at ~90 GHz using archived data taken at the IRAM 30m telescope during the 20 years period 1985 to 2005. We…
Ranked near the top of the long list of exciting discoveries made with NASA's Kepler photometer is the detection of transiting circumbinary planets. In just over a year the number of such planets went from zero to seven, including a…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) provides the opportunity for ground-breaking observations of asteroids. It covers wavelength regions that are unavailable from the ground, and does so with unprecedented sensitivity. The main-belt and…
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…
The frequency of planets in binaries is an important issue in the field of extrasolar planet studies because of its relevance in the estimation of the global planet population of our galaxy and the clues it can give to our understanding of…
Long time coverage and high radial velocity precision have allowed for the discovery of additional objects in known planetary systems. Many of the extrasolar planets detected have highly eccentric orbits, which raises the question of how…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), a coronagraphic adaptive optics instrument designed for spectroscopy of extrasolar planets, had first light in 2013[13]. After five years, GPI has observed more than 500 stars, producing an extensive library…
Despite the revolution in our knowledge resulting from the detection of planets around mature stars, we know almost nothing about planets orbiting young stars because rapid rotation and active photospheres preclude detection by radial…
Astrometry can detect rocky planets in a broad range of masses and orbital distances and measure their masses and three-dimensional orbital parameters, including eccentricity and inclination, to provide the properties of terrestrial…