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Toward an Exoplanet Roadmap.

Toward an Exoplanet Roadmap. ExoPAG 8 Meeting Denver, CO October 5+6, 2012 Scott Gaudi. Goal. To develop a holistic, broad, unified, and coherent exoplanet roadmap for the next 5-10 years, with community consensus, focusing on areas where NASA can contribute. Why?.

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Toward an Exoplanet Roadmap.

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  1. Toward an Exoplanet Roadmap. ExoPAG8 Meeting Denver, CO October 5+6, 2012 Scott Gaudi

  2. Goal. To develop a holistic, broad, unified, and coherent exoplanet roadmap for the next 5-10 years, with community consensus, focusing on areas where NASA can contribute.

  3. Why? • Thesis: A community consensus going into the mid-decadal review, and particularly the next decadal survey, will improve the chances that our priorities will be executed and/or highly ranked.

  4. Hasn’t this been done many many times? • Yes. • Exoplanet Task Force (chaired by J. Lunine) • Exoplanet Community Report (Lawson, Traub & Unwin) • Hard work has largely been done. • Were these effective? If no, why not?

  5. WFIRST+C Discussion at ExoPAG 7. • Scheduled talk from David Spergel on AFTA, but… • Brief summary of AFTA SDT activities up to that point. • Group discussion: • “Does the community endorse putting a coronagraph on AFTA/WFIRST, even if it means forgoing some future technology development opportunities and/or other small-scale direct imaging missions?” • Unanimous yes! • This was considered an important endorsement by NASA.

  6. Science of Exoplanets. • Pale Blue Dots vs. Exoplanet Astrophyics. • Finding and characterizing a ‘pale blue dot’ remains a long-term goal. • But there are many other exoplanet science questions that we can and should address in the interim. • Many of these will likely bear directly on our understanding of habitable worlds. • Let’s take a step back: what are the ‘big’ science questions in exoplanets?

  7. Inquiry Areas. • Physics of Planet Formation and Evolution. • Physics of Planetary Atmospheres and Interiors. • Physics, Frequency, and Evolution of Habitability.

  8. Tools. • Demographics. • Characterization. • Census and characterization of nearby systems.

  9. Goals. • A Complete Exoplanet(Statistical) Census. • Characterization of a Diversity of Other Worlds. • Surveying Nearby Planetary System and Searching for Habitable Climates.

  10. Physics of Planet Formation and Evolution Physics, Frequency, Evolution of Habitability Secular evolution Water delivery instability Impacts Physics of Planetary Atmospheres and Interiors Protoplanetary and Debris Disk Observations Theory A Complete Exoplanet Census Surveying Nearby Planetary Systems and Searching for Habitable Climates Characterization of a Diversity of Other Worlds. TESS JWST RV Surveys Kepler Ground-Based Transit Surveys Flagship DI EChO Ground-Based Direct Imaging AFTA-WFIRST SIM GAIA HST/Spitzer

  11. Habitable Planets. “Pale Blue Dot” “Small Black Shadow”

  12. 2030-2040 2010-2020 2020-2030 A Complete Exoplanet Census Characterization of a Diversity of Other Worlds Science Roadmap Our Nearest Neighbors: Surveying Nearby Planetary Systems and Searching for Habitable Climates Ground-Based Mission-Supporting Observations F-DIM: (Flagship Direct Imaging Mission) TESS JWST Mission Roadmap WFIRST+C HST Transit Char. Mission? Spitzer Astrometry Mission? Kepler

  13. Mission Matrix, e.g. F-DIM

  14. Some Open Questions. • Do we need additional capabilities for characterization of exoplanets? • How do we measure the masses of the nearby habitable planets? • What is the role of mid-IR interferometry? • How do we achieve a consensus plan, particularly for the F-DIM, in time for the next decadal review? • Others?

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