Related papers: Direct Detection of Extra-Solar Comets is Possible
Micron size extrasolar dust particles have been convincingly detected by satellites. Larger extrasolar meteoroids (5-35 microns) have most likely been detected by ground based radar at Arecibo and New Zealand. We present estimates of the…
The discovery of over 200 extrasolar planets with the radial velocity (RV) technique has revealed that many giant planets have large eccentricities, in striking contrast with most of the planets in the solar system and prior theories of…
Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered and the search for life outside Earth is at the forefront of astrophysical research. The planets we observe show a mind-blowing diversity that current theories strive to explain as part of the…
In addition to planets and other small bodies, stellar systems will likely also host exozodiacal dust, or exozodi. This warm dust primarily resides in or near the habitable zone of a star, and scatters stellar light in visible to NIR…
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…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…
Giant planets orbiting stars other than the Sun are clearly detectable through precise radial-velocity measurements of the orbital reflex motion of the parent star. In the four years since the discovery of the companion to the star 51 Peg,…
The diversity and quantity of moons in the Solar System suggest a manifold population of natural satellites exist around extrasolar planets. Of peculiar interest from an astrobiological perspective, the number of sizable moons in the…
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 suggest to use the Hubble Space Telescople (HST) follow-up observations of the TESS targets for detecting possible plasma tori along the orbits of exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs. The source of the torus could be planetary volcanic activity…
Astronomy is at times a science of unexpected discovery. When it is, and if we are lucky, new intellectual territories emerge to challenge our views of the cosmos. The recent indirect detections using high-precision Doppler spectroscopy of…
Detections of massive extrasolar moons are shown feasible with the Kepler space telescope. Kepler's findings of about 50 exoplanets in the stellar habitable zone naturally make us wonder about the habitability of their hypothetical moons.…
Exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars are a prime target in the search for life in the Universe. M dwarf stars are active, with powerful flares that could adversely impact prospects for life, though there are counter-arguments. Here, we turn…
The detection of thousands of extrasolar planets by the transit method naturally raises the question of whether potential extrasolar observers could detect the transits of the Solar System planets. We present a comprehensive analysis of the…
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…
Circumstellar debris disks are the extrasolar analogues of the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. They consist of comets and leftover planetesimals that continuously collide and produce circumstellar dust that can be observed as infrared…
Extrasolar debris disks are the dust disks found around nearby main sequence stars arising from the break-up of asteroids and comets orbiting the stars. Far-IR surveys (e.g., with Herschel) showed that ~20% of stars host detectable dust…
Several celestial bodies in co-orbital configurations exist in the solar system. However, co-orbital exoplanets have not yet been discovered. This lack may result from a degeneracy between the signal induced by co-orbital planets and other…
In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new…