Bibcode
Tinetti, Giovanna; Drossart, Pierre; Eccleston, Paul; Hartogh, Paul; Heske, Astrid; Leconte, Jérémy; Micela, Giusi; Ollivier, Marc; Pilbratt, Göran; Puig, Ludovic; Turrini, Diego; Vandenbussche, Bart; Wolkenberg, Paulina; Beaulieu, Jean-Philippe; Buchave, Lars A.; Ferus, Martin; Griffin, Matt; Guedel, Manuel; Justtanont, Kay; Lagage, Pierre-Olivier; Machado, Pedro; Malaguti, Giuseppe; Min, Michiel; Nørgaard-Nielsen, Hans Ulrik; Rataj, Mirek; Ray, Tom; Ribas, Ignasi; Swain, Mark; Szabo, Robert; Werner, Stephanie; Barstow, Joanna; Burleigh, Matt; Cho, James; du Foresto, Vincent Coudé; Coustenis, Athena; Decin, Leen; Encrenaz, Therese; Galand, Marina; Gillon, Michael; Helled, Ravit; Morales, Juan Carlos; Muñoz, Antonio García; Moneti, Andrea; Pagano, Isabella; Pascale, Enzo; Piccioni, Giuseppe; Pinfield, David; Sarkar, Subhajit; Selsis, Franck; Tennyson, Jonathan; Triaud, Amaury; Venot, Olivia; Waldmann, Ingo; Waltham, David; Wright, Gillian; Amiaux, Jerome; Auguères, Jean-Louis; Berthé, Michel; Bezawada, Naidu; Bishop, Georgia; Bowles, Neil; Coffey, Deirdre; Colomé, Josep; Crook, Martin; Crouzet, Pierre-Elie; Da Peppo, Vania; Sanz, Isabel Escudero; Focardi, Mauro; Frericks, Martin; Hunt, Tom; Kohley, Ralf; Middleton, Kevin; Morgante, Gianluca; Ottensamer, Roland; Pace, Emanuele; Pearson, Chris; Stamper, Richard; Symonds, Kate; Rengel, Miriam; Renotte, Etienne; Ade, Peter; Affer, Laura; Alard, Christophe; Allard, Nicole; Altieri, Francesca; André, Yves; Arena, Claudio; Argyriou, Ioannis; Aylward, Alan; Baccani, Cristian; Bakos, Gaspar; Banaszkiewicz, Marek; Barlow, Mike; Batista, Virginie; Bellucci, Giancarlo; Benatti, Serena; Bernardi, Pernelle; Bézard, Bruno; Blecka, Maria; Bolmont, Emeline et al.
Referencia bibliográfica
Experimental Astronomy, Volume 46, Issue 1, pp.135-209
Fecha de publicación:
11
2018
Revista
Número de citas
298
Número de citas referidas
263
Descripción
Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of
masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas
giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential
nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no
known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital
parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little
idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation
environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and
chemistry of the planet's birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to
observe a large number ( 1000) of transiting planets for statistical
understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and
Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit
spectroscopy in the 1.25-7.8 μm spectral range and multiple
narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot
planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should
show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared
to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are
expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition.
Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their
elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the
understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation
during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will
thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the
exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment
of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for
combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and
well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit,
eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from
the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary
ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at
levels of 10-100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given
the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques,
such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the
atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and
satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to
detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify
clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed
covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g.
H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN,
H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as
TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in
conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed - using conservative
estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant
noise sources in the measurement - using a list of potential ARIEL
targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The
conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL - in line with
the stated mission objectives - will be able to observe about 1000
exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus
confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.
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Enric
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