Abstract
Described is NASA's ongoing program for the detection and characterization of exosolar planets via high-contrast imaging. Some of the more promising proposed techniques under assessment may enable detection of life outside our solar system. In visible light terrestrial planets are ~10−10 dimmer than the parent star. Issues such as diffraction, scatter, wavefront, amplitude and polarization all contribute to a reduction in contrast. An overview of the techniques will be discussed.
© 2008 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
Richard G. Lyon
STuB3 Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2008
Feiling Wang and Christopher Spivey
OW4A.1 Adaptive Optics: Methods, Analysis and Applications (AO) 2013
J.P.L. Michael Shao
STuB2 Laser Science (LS) 2008