The exoplanet program of the microarcsecond astrometric observatory Theia (Conference Presentation)

Lucas Labadie; Fabien Malbet; Alain Léger; Céline Boehm; Antoine Crouzier; Alberto Krone-Martins

doi:10.1117/12.2273619

19 September 2017 The exoplanet program of the microarcsecond astrometric observatory Theia (Conference Presentation)

Lucas Labadie, Fabien Malbet, Alain Léger, Céline Boehm, Antoine Crouzier, Alberto Krone-Martins

Proceedings Volume 10400, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII; 104001F (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273619
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2017, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Theia mission, as a natural successor to Gaia, will be the first extremely-high-precision astrometric surveyor that may emerge from the last ESA M5 call in October 2016. A major objective of Theia in the context of this conference is the detection by astrometry of Earths and Super-Earths exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby A to M stars. This can be done by astrometry from space if a motion of <1-microarcesec can be recorded (0.3 microarcsec for an Earth/Sun system at 10 pc). Such an accuracy can be reached by Theia in the form of an 0.8-m telescope with 0.5° FOV in orbit at L2 for 3,5 years and providing repeated differential astrometric measurements between the science target and background reference stars. The exoplanet program will use circa 10% of the mission lifetime and will be able to survey 63 nearby stars with a ~0.6 microarssec astrometric floor to eventually detect planets down to 0.2 M_earth over circa 50 visits. In order to measure a centroid position on the CCD with an accuracy of 1e-5 pixels, Theia’s high-precision measurement relies on an on-board interferometric laser metrology unit to calibrate out the pixel’s offset to the nominal position, as well as the inter- and intra-pixel quantum efficiency. The preliminary Theia mission assessment allowed us to identify a safe and robust mission architecture that demonstrates the mission feasibility within the Soyuz ST launch envelope and a small M-class mission cost cap. We present here these features and the corresponding exoplanet program.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Lucas Labadie, Fabien Malbet, Alain Léger, Céline Boehm, Antoine Crouzier, and Alberto Krone-Martins "The exoplanet program of the microarcsecond astrometric observatory Theia (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10400, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII, 104001F (19 September 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273619

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTATION

WATCH
PRESENTATION SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

KEYWORDS

Exoplanets

Stars

Interferometry

Laser metrology

Planets

Space telescopes

Calibration

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years