Related papers: Planetary Transits Toward the Galactic Bulge
The addition of an external starshade to the {\it Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope} will enable the direct imaging of Earth-radius planets orbiting at $\sim$1 AU. Classification of any detected planets as Earth-like requires both…
The Gl 581 planetary system has generated wide interest, because its 4 planets include both the lowest mass planet known around a main sequence star other than the Sun and the first super-Earth planet in the habitable zone of its star. A…
Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…
(Abridged) Space missions to search for exo-planets via the transit method, such as COROT, Eddington and Kepler, will need to address problems associated with the automated and efficient detection of planetary transits in light curves…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
A feasibility study was carried out at the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley demonstrating that it is a well-poised site to conduct an upcoming observing campaign aimed at detecting small-size…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
Many of the planets discovered via the radial velocity technique are hot Jupiters in 3-5 day orbits with ~10$% chance of transiting their parent star. However, radial velocity surveys for extra-solar planets generally require substantial…
Context. Searching for planets in open clusters allows us to study the effects of dynamical environment on planet formation and evolution. Aims. Considering the strong dependence of planet frequency on stellar metallicity, we studied the…
The Roman Space Telescope Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) is expected to detect ~$10^5$ transiting planets. Many of these planets will have short orbital periods and are thus susceptible to tidal decay. We use a catalog of…
Context: TESS has been successfully launched and has begin data acquisition. To expedite the science that may be performed with the resulting data it is necessary to gain a good understanding of planetary yields. Given the observing…
Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous, type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar…
We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…
We investigate the number and type of pulsars that will be discovered with the low-frequency radio telescope LOFAR. We consider different search strategies for the Galaxy, for globular clusters and for other galaxies. We show that a 25-day…
The high stellar density in the central parsecs around the Galactic Centre makes it a seemingly favourable environment for finding relativistic binary pulsars. These include pulsars orbiting other neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes or…
A new method for determining the stellar rotation period is proposed here, based on the detection of starspots during transits of an extra-solar planet orbiting its host star. As the planet eclipses the star, it may pass in front of a…
The Kepler Mission is exploring the diversity of planets and planetary systems. Its legacy will be a catalog of discoveries sufficient for computing planet occurrence rates as a function of size, orbital period, star-type, and insolation…
We report the results of a globally coordinated photometric campaign to search for transits by the P ~ 30 d and P ~ 60 d outer planets of the 3-planet system orbiting the nearby M-dwarf Gl 876. These two planets experience strong mutual…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…
The search for life outside of the Solar System should not be restricted to exclusively planetary bodies; large moons of extrasolar planets may also be common habitable environments throughout the Galaxy. Extrasolar moons, or exomoons, may…