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Major prospects of exoplanet astronomy with the World Space Observatory–UltraViolet mission

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Abstract

The success of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) first and then of the STIS and COS spectrographs on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) demonstrate the impact that observations at UV wavelengths had and are having on modern astronomy. Several discoveries in the exoplanet field have been done at UV wavelengths. Nevertheless, the amount of data collected in this band is still limited both in terms of observed targets and time spent on each of them. For the next decade, the post-HST era, the only large (2-m class) space telescope capable of UV observations will be the World Space Observatory–UltraViolet (WSO–UV). In its characteristics, the WSO–UV mission is similar to that of HST, but all observing time will be dedicated to UV astronomy. In this work, we briefly outline the major prospects of the WSO–UV mission in terms of exoplanet studies. To the limits of the data and tools currently available, here we also compare the quality of key exoplanet data obtained in the far-UV and near-UV with HST (STIS and COS) to that expected to obtain with WSO–UV.

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Acknowledgements

HL acknowledges support by the FWF NFN project S11601-N16 “Pathways to Habitability: From Disks to Active Stars, Planets and Life”, and the related FWF NFN subproject, S116607-N16 “Particle/Radiative Interactions with Upper Atmospheres of Planetary Bodies Under Extreme Stellar Conditions”. The authors thank the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, and the ISSI team “Characterizing stellar and exoplanetary environments”. LF thanks Aline Vidotto for useful comments to the manuscript and Stefano Bagnulo for useful discussions. The authors would like to thank the anonymous referee for the valuable comments and suggestions which led to an improvement of the manuscript.

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  1. Argelander-Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121, Bonn, Germany

    L. Fossati

  2. Institute of Astronomy RAS, 48 Pyatnitskaya str., 119017, Moscow, Russian Federation

    D. Bisikalo, B. Shustov & M. Sachkov

  3. Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Schmiedlstrasse 6, 8042, Graz, Austria

    H. Lammer

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Fossati, L., Bisikalo, D., Lammer, H. et al. Major prospects of exoplanet astronomy with the World Space Observatory–UltraViolet mission. Astrophys Space Sci 354, 9–19 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-014-2027-3

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