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Full Record Details
Persistent URL
http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/10883232
Record Status
Checked
Record Id
10883232
Title
Using SPICA Space Telescope to characterize Exoplanets
Contributors
JR Goicoechea
,
B Swinyard (STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab.)
,
G Tinetti
,
T Nakagawa
,
K Enya
,
M Tamura
,
M Ferlet (STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab.)
,
KG Isaak
,
M Wyatt
,
AD Aylward
,
M Barlow
,
JP Beaulieu
,
A Boccaletti
,
J Cernicharo
,
J Cho
,
R Claudi
,
H Jones
,
H Lammer
,
A Leger
,
J Martín-Pintado
,
S Miller
,
F Najarro
,
D Pinfield
,
J Schneider
,
F Selsis
,
DM Stam
,
J Tennyson
,
S Viti
,
G White (STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab.)
Abstract
A White Paper for ESA's Exo-Planet Roadmap Advisory Team, submitted on 2008 July 29. We present the 3.5m SPICA space telescope, a proposed Japanese-led JAXA-ESA mission scheduled for launch around 2017. The actively cooled (<5 K), single aperture telescope and monolithic mirror will operate from ~3.5 to ~210 um and will provide superb sensitivity in the mid- and far-IR spectral domain (better than JWST at lambda > 18 um). SPICA is one of the few space missions selected to go to the next stage of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 selection process. In this White Paper we present the main specifications of the three instruments currently baselined for SPICA: a mid-infrared (MIR) coronagraph (~3.5 to ~27 um) with photometric and spectral capabilities (R~200), a MIR wide-field camera and high resolution spectrometer (R~30,000), and a far-infrared (FIR ~30 to ~210 um) imaging spectrometer - SAFARI - led by a European consortium. We discuss their capabilities in the context of MIR direct observations of exo-planets (EPs) and multiband photometry/high resolution spectroscopy observations of transiting exo-planets. We conclude that SPICA will be able to characterize the atmospheres of transiting exo-planets down to the super-Earth size previously detected by ground- or space-based observatories. It will also directly detect and characterize Jupiter/Neptune-size planets orbiting at larger separation from their parent star (>5-10 AU), by performing quantitative atmospheric spectroscopy and studying proto-planetary and debris disks. In addition, SPICA will be a scientific and technological precursor for future, more ambitious, IR space missions for exo-planet direct detection as it will, for example, quantify the prevalence exo-zodiacal clouds in planetary systems and test coronographic techniques, cryogenic systems and lightweight, high quality telescopes.
Organisation
SSTD
,
STFC
Keywords
Funding Information
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Language
English (EN)
Type
Details
URI(s)
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Year
Preprint
2008.
http://arxiv.org/…s/0809/0809.0242.pdf
2008
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