"There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours... We must believe that in all worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world." Epicurus (c. 300 BCE) "Do there exist many worlds, Or is there but a single world? This is one of the most noble and Exalted questions in the study of Nature." Albertus Magnus, d. 1280 NASA planning for the discovery and exploration of "exoplanets", that is, planets around stars other than our own, has been underway for more than a decade. During that time, over 250 exoplanets have been discovered using ground-based techniques. Existing space assets such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope have been able to provide follow-up observations to characterize the planets and the systems they occupy. Inherent limitations of the available techniques and instuments have limited these discoveries to large planets in odd orbits. Still, these activities add significantly to our understanding of the nature of the investigations that will be required to characterize terrestrial, potentially habitable, exoplanets. We discuss the technology investments and accomplishments that have resulted from the early investments in NASA's exoplanet exploration program. A rich set of investigation types that now are at hand to probe exoplanet science is discussed.
Exploring ExoPlanets: NASA's Future Space Missions
2008-03-01
2240518 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Exoplanets and NASA's exoplanet exploration program
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