Worlds beyond: A strategy for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. Executive summary of a report of the ExoPlanet Task Force Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee Washington, DC June 23, 2008.
Worlds beyond: A strategy for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. Executive summary of a report of the ExoPlanet Task Force Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee Washington, DC June 23, 2008.
复制标题
超越世界：系外行星的探测和表征策略。
作者：
J. Lunine;D. Fischer;H. Hammel;T. Henning;L. Hillenbrand;J. Kasting;G. Laughlin;B. Macintosh;M. Marley;G. Melnick;D. Monet;C. Noecker;S. Peale;A. Quirrenbach;S. Seager;J. Winn
我们在系外行星的探测和研究方面存在巨大分歧。这一鸿沟的一侧是数百颗已知的大质量系外行星，测量了少数最热系外行星的密度和大气温度。分歧的另一边存在着一种尚未实现的可能性，即探测和表征真正的地球类似物——一颗类地行星（一颗具有地球质量或地球半径的行星，围绕一颗类太阳恒星运行，距离大约一个天文单位）。这份 ExoPlanet 特别工作组报告描述了如何弥合分歧。这些建议强调立即投资于技术和太空任务开发，这将导致发现和表征地球类似物。我们认识到，设定探测像地球这样的行星的目标设定了很高的标准。如果我们要确定我们在自己的世界上发现的条件是否是行星演化的共同结果，那么该计划的目标就是这些物体，这一点很重要。我们所拥有的宜居世界的唯一例子就是我们自己的单地球质量行星。事实上，我们最近的邻居金星的质量几乎相同，但由于距离太阳更近而无法居住。例如，寻找质量是地球五倍的行星就更容易了。但如果它们最终缺乏适宜居住的大气层，我们将不知道这是否是偶然的，还是更高质量的系统效应。的连接
WE STAND ON A GREAT DIVIDE in the detection and study of exoplanets. On one side of this divide are the hundreds of known massive exoplanets, with measured densities and atmospheric temperatures for a handful of the hottest exoplanets. On the other side of the divide lies the possibility, as yet unrealized, of detecting and characterizing a true Earth analogue—an Earth-like planet (a planet of one Earth mass or Earth radius orbiting a Sun-like star at a distance of roughly one astronomical unit). This ExoPlanet Task Force Report describes how to bridge the divide. The recommendations emphasize immediate investment in technology and space mission development that will lead to discovering and characterizing Earth analogues. We recognize that setting a goal of detecting planets like Earth sets the bar high. It is important that the program target such objects if we are to determine whether the conditions we find on our own world are a common outcome of planetary evolution. The only example of a habitable world we have is our own one-Earth-mass planet; and indeed our nearest neighbor, Venus, is nearly the same mass but uninhabitable by virtue of closer proximity to the Sun. Searching for planets, for example, five times the mass of Earth is easier. But should they turn out to lack habitable atmospheres, we would not know whether this is by chance or whether it is a systematic effect of the higher mass. The connection of