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This thesis focuses on the detection of extrasolar planets via the transit method, and more specifically addresses issues relevant to the preparation of upcoming space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, Eddington, aiming to detect terrestrial…
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…
The goal of finding and characterizing habitable planets in other solar systems represents one of humanity's greatest scientific challenges. NASA and ESA have initiated studies of missions that could accomplish this goal within the next ten…
Directly imaging Earth-like exoplanets within habitable zones is challenging because faint signals can be obscured by exozodiacal dust, analogous to our solar system's zodiacal dust. This dust scatters starlight, creating a bright…
The upcoming TESS mission will detect thousands of candidate transiting exoplanets. Those candidates require extensive follow-up observations to distinguish genuine planets from false positives, and to resolve the physical properties of the…
Extraterrestrial technology may exist in the Solar System without our knowledge. This is because the vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial…
Planetary radars have obtained unique science measurements about solar system bodies and they have provided orbit determinations allowing spacecraft to be navigated throughout the solar system. Notable results have been on Venus, Earth's…
Detection of weak radial velocity shifts of host stars induced by orbiting planets is an important technique for discovering and characterizing planets beyond our solar system. Optical frequency combs enable calibration of stellar radial…
There are several methods for indirectly detecting exoplanets, such as transit, radial velocity, astrometry, and the conventional gravitational microlensing approach. These methods rely on observing the effects of exoplanets on the emission…
Exoplanet surface imaging, cartography and the search for exolife are the next frontiers of planetology and astrophysics. Here we present an over-view of ideas and techniques to resolve albedo features on exoplanetary surfaces. Albedo maps…
The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments will provide the first unresolved image of an extrasolar planet. While the emitted infrared light from the planet in thermal equilibrium should show almost no phase effect, the…
One of the objectives of the CoRoT mission is the search for transiting extrasolar planets using high-precision photometry, and the accurate characterization of their fundamental parameters. The CoRoT satellite consecutively observes…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
As the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) fulfills its primary mission it is executing an unprecedented all-sky survey with the potential to discover distant planets in our own solar system, as well as hundreds of…
Observational surveys for extrasolar planets probe the diverse outcomes of planet formation and evolution. These surveys measure the frequency of planets with different masses, sizes, orbital characteristics, and host star properties. Small…
Studies of future space- and ground-based exoplanet surveys often rely on models of planetary systems to simulate instrument response, estimate scientific yields, perform trade analyses, and study efficient observation strategies. Until…
The main objective of this chapter is to present an overview of the different areas of key technologies that will be needed to fly the technically most challenging of the representative missions identified in chapter 4 (the Pillar 2 Horizon…
Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Among the methods proposed to detect extrasolar planets, microlensing is the only technique that can detect free-floating planets. Free-floating planets are detected through the channel of short-duration isolated lensing events. However, if…