Related papers: Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets: Can We Detect Them…
We present the results of two 2.3 micron near-infrared radial velocity surveys to detect exoplanets around 36 nearby and young M dwarfs. We use the CSHELL spectrograph (R ~46,000) at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility, combined with an…
The detection of lower mass planets now being reported via radial velocity and microlensing surveys suggests that they may be ubiquitous. If missions such as Kepler are able to confirm this, the detection and study of rocky planets via…
The field of extrasolar planets is still, in comparison with other astrophysical topics, in its infancy. There have been about 300 or so extrasolar planets detected and their detection has been accomplished by various different techniques.…
Stars in young nearby associations are the only targets allowing giant planet searches at all separations in the near future, by coupling indirect techniques such as radial velocity and deep imaging. These stars are first priorities targets…
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the introduction of solid-state, signal-generating detectors and absorption cells to impose wavelength fiducials directly on the starlight, the errors in stellar radial velocity (RV) measurements were…
Stellar variability impacts radial velocities at various timescales and therefore the detectability of exoplanets and the mass determination based on this technique. It is necessary to implement systematic studies, to delineate the current…
Observations of the Earth's exosphere have unveiled an extended envelope of hydrogen reaching further than 10 Earth radii composed of atoms orbiting around the Earth. This large envelope increases significantly the opacity of the Earth to…
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…
Exoplanets can be detected with various observational techniques. Among them, radial velocity (RV) has the key advantages of revealing the architecture of planetary systems and measuring planetary mass and orbital eccentricities. RV…
Detection of Jupiter mass companions to nearby solar type stars with precise radial velocity measurements is now routine, and Doppler surveys are moving towards lower velocity amplitudes. The detection of several Neptune-mass planets with…
The physical characterization of exoplanets will require to take spectra at several orbital positions. For that purpose, a direct imaging capability is necessary. Direct imaging requires an efficient stellar suppression mechanism,…
Radial velocity surveys for extra-solar planets generally require substantial amounts of large telescope time in order to monitor a sufficient number of stars. Two of the aspects which can limit such surveys are the single-object…
Searching for extrasolar planets by direct detection is extremely challenging for current instrumentation. Indirect methods, that measure the effect of a planet on its host star, are much more promising and have indeed led to the discovery…
The Exoplanet Tracker is a prototype of a new type of fibre-fed instrument for performing high precision relative Doppler measurements to detect extra-solar planets. A combination of Michelson interferometer and medium resolution…
Earth-like extra-solar planets may be detected with 1-2m class telescopes using the gravitational microlensing technique. The essential requirement is the ability to be able to carry out continuous observations of the galactic bulge. A…
Microlensing is the most promising method to study the statistical frequency of extra-solar planets orbiting typical (random) stars in the Milky Way, even those several kiloparsecs from Earth. The lensing zone corresponds to orbital…
With its planet detection efficiency reaching a maximum for orbital radii between 1 and 10 AU, microlensing provides a unique sensitivity to planetary systems similar to our own around galactic and even extragalactic stars acting as lenses…
The recent discovery of an earth-like planet around Proxima Centauri has drawn much attention to this star and its environment. We performed a series of observations of Proxima Centauri using SPHERE, the planet finder instrument installed…
Extra-solar planets can be efficiently detected in gravitational microlensing events of high magnification. High accuracy photometry is required over a short, well-defined time interval only, of order 10-30 hours. Most planets orbiting the…
Precise mass measurements of exoplanets discovered by the direct imaging or transit technique are required to determine planet bulk properties and potential habitability. Furthermore, it is generally acknowledged that, for the foreseeable…