Friday, January 29, 2010, Noon, Phillips Auditorium
Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph Mission Concept
Dr. Volker Tolls, CfA
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The Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC) is a proposed NASA Exoplanet
Probe mission to image and characterize extrasolar giant planets in orbits with
semi-major axes between 2 and 10 AU. EPIC will provide insights into the physical
nature of a variety of planets in other solar systems complementing radial velocity
(RV), transit, and astrometric planet searches. It will detect and characterize the
atmospheres of planets identified by radial velocity surveys, determine orbital
inclinations and masses, characterize the atmospheres around A and F stars, and
observe the inner spatial structure and colors of inner Spitzer selected debris
disks. EPIC would be launched to a heliocentric Earth trailing drift-away orbit with
a 5-year mission lifetime (7-year goal), allowing us to revisit selected solar
systems at least three times at intervals of 9 months.
The starlight suppression approach consists of a visible nulling coronagraph (VNC) that enables high order starlight suppression in broadband light. To demonstrate the VNC approach and advance its technology readiness the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and Lockheed-Martin have developed a laboratory VNC and have demonstrated white light nulling. I will present a mission overview, review the science case and technical implementation, and finish with a discussion of the on-going technical developments. |
