Exoplanets and Habitability

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology book series (COLE, volume 28)

Abstract

The discovery of planets outside of our Solar System has been accompanied by numerous surprises. The field of exoplanets has undergone enormous diversification over the past 20 years. The reasons for this include (but are not limited to) new detection techniques, longer period baseline, smaller mass/radius sensitivity, and atmosphere detection and modeling. As a result of these developments, we are able to accurately characterize the orbits of exoplanets and infer properties of their atmosphere’s surface conditions. Figure 1 demonstrates the rapid rate at which the field has grown and the new techniques, most particularly the transit method, which have greatly enriched both the number and diversity of the discoveries. The sensitivity of radial velocity and transit surveys to planets at longer periods is fundamentally limited by the survey duration. Many of the radial velocity surveys are now pushing this detection threshold beyond orbital periods of 10 years and with upgraded instruments are sensitive to masses only a few times that of the Earth.

Keywords

Solar System Giant Planet Terrestrial Planet Eccentric Orbit Habitable Zone 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.NASA Exoplanet Science InstituteCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPasadenaUSA

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