Bibcode
Deeg, H. J.; Horne, K.
Bibliographical reference
In: Proceedings of the First Eddington Workshop on Stellar Structure and Habitable Planet Finding, 11 - 15 June 2001, Córdoba, Spain. Editor: B. Battrick, Scientific editors: F. Favata, I. W. Roxburgh & D. Galadi. ESA SP-485, Noordwijk: ESA Publications Division, ISBN 92-9092-781-X, 2002, p. 123 - 128
Advertised on:
1
2002
Citations
2
Refereed citations
2
Description
The capabilities of Eddington for the detection and analysis of
extrasolar planets are outlined. The primary goal of the PF (Planet
finding) part of the mission is the detection of planets that are Earth
like - which limits their size to less then 3 Earth radii - and which
are potentially habitable - which limits their temperature or their
orbital distance and period. Secondary goals will be the detection of
larger planets and their analysis. For evaluations, stellar light-curves
from Eddington were simulated, and artificial transits were included in
a subset. These curves then served as the base for detectability tests,
giving us an outline of the stellar-size versus planet-size versus
planet-temperature parameter space in which Eddington may perform
reliable detections. For stars smaller than about G5V, and brighter than
mV = 16, Eddington will detect any transiting planets with
minimum sizes of 1 - 2.5 Earth radii. As Eddington will survey several
hundredthousands of stars, for transits, a significant number of
Earth-like planets would be detected, provided that the fraction of
stars with such planets is not a small number. Also, there will be
detections of large numbers of giant planets through transits, as well
as a complete survey of Hot Giant planets, as these can be detected by
reflected light - even if they are not causing transits.