Optimal Occulter Design for Finding Extrasolar Planets

Optimal Occulter Design for Finding Extrasolar Planets

One proposed method for finding terrestrial planets around nearby stars is to use two spacecraft—a telescope and a specially shaped occulter, whose shape is specially designed to prevent all but a tiny fraction of the starlight from diffracting into the telescope. As the cost and observing cadence for such a mission will be driven largely by the separation between the two spacecraft, it is crit...

Magnetospheric Emissions from Extrasolar Planets Magnetospheric Emission from Extrasolar Planets

Microlensing Searches for Extrasolar Planets

I review results from, and future prospects for, microlensing searches for extrasolar planets. Analyses of well-sampled microlensing light curves by several collaborations have demonstrated that current searches are sensitive to ∼> MJ planets with few AU separations from M-dwarfs in the Galactic bulge. To date, however, no unambiguous planetary detections have been made. Detailed analysis has s...

Extrasolar Carbon Planets

We suggest that some extrasolar planets . 60 M will form substantially from silicon carbide and other carbon compounds. Pulsar planets and low-mass white dwarf planets are especially good candidate members of this new class of planets, but these objects could also conceivably form around stars like the Sun. This planet-formation pathway requires only a factor of two local enhancement of the pro...

Five New Extrasolar Planets

We report multiple Doppler measurements of five nearby FGK main-sequence stars and subgiants obtained during the past 4–6 yr at the Keck Observatory. These stars, namely, HD 183263, HD 117207, HD 188015, HD 45350, and HD 99492, all exhibit coherent variations in their Doppler shifts consistent with a planet in Keplerian motion. The five new planets occupy known realms of planetary parameter spa...