Related papers: Direct Detection of Extra-Solar Comets is Possible
Close-in extrasolar giant planets may be directly detectable by their reflected light, due to the proximity of the planet to the illuminating star. The spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component that varies in amplitude…
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…
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…
The Hubble Space Telescope is uniquely able to study planets that are observed to transit their parent stars. The extremely stable platform afforded by an orbiting spacecraft, free from the contaminating effects of the Earth's atmosphere,…
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…
Interest among astronomers in the detection of extra-solar planets is accelerating with the growing realization that it may soon be technically feasible. The ongoing renaissance in telescope construction and the anticipated launches of new…
The search for extrasolar Earth-like planets is underway. Over 100 extrasolar giant planets are known to orbit nearby sun-like stars, including several in multiple-planet systems. These planetary systems are stepping stones for the search…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
The exquisite photometric precision of the Kepler space telescope now puts the detection of extrasolar moons at the horizon. Here, we firstly review observational and analytical techniques that have recently been proposed to find exomoons.…
The phase or orbital light curves of extrasolar terrestrial planets in reflected or emitted light will contain information about their atmospheres and surfaces complementary to data obtained by other techniques such as spectrosopy. We show…
Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…
We present a way of searching for non-transiting exoplanets with dusty tails. In the transiting case, the extinction by dust during the transit removes more light from the beam than is scattered into it. Thus, the forward scattering…
Are there other planetary systems in our Universe? Indirect evidence has been found for planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy: the gravity of orbiting planets makes the star wobble, and the resulting periodic Doppler shifts have been…
I present a review of observational efforts to study known extrasolar planets by methods that are complementary to the radial velocity technique. I describe the current state of attempts to detect and characterize such planets by…
We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of binary planets. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…
Directly imaging extrasolar planets using a monolithic optical telescope avoids many pitfalls of space interferometry and opens up the prospect of visible light studies of extrasolar planetary systems. Future astronomical missions may…
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…
We performed numerical simulations of stellar occultations by extra-solar cometary tails. We find that extra-solar comets can be detected by the apparent photometric variations of the central stars. In most cases, the light curve shows a…