Searching for exoplanets by stellar photometry

Abstract

Astronomers, other scientists, and the public at large would very much like to see images of exoplanets, particularly habitable exoplanets. Such images could then be scrutinized for life and landscapes. Even seeing a planet as a single dot would be an enormous advance in our search for life, because we could then analyze the infrared radiation it emits or the light it reflects, as you will see in Chapter 13. However, in the previous chapter I indicated that, with rare exceptions, this cannot yet be achieved, and not at all in the case of habitable planets — these will be more Earth sized than Jupiter sized and thus pose a much greater challenge to detection methods.