Jason Wang "New Frontiers in Exoplanet Imaging and Pathways to Habitable Worlds"

Jason Wang (Northwestern University)

"New Frontiers in Exoplanet Imaging and Pathways to Habitable Worlds"



By spatially resolving faint planets from their bright host stars, we can directly characterize them as individual worlds. Exoplanet imaging is a technology-driven field, and I will discuss three new novel instruments that allow us to detect and characterize imaged Jovian exoplanets and whose technology, if placed on the next generation of observatories, has the potential for us to study habitable worlds. The Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC) combines high-contrast imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy techniques together for the first time and allows us to spectrally resolve molecular absorption lines in the atmospheres of directly imaged planets. Long-baseline interferometry with VLTI/GRAVITY gives us the spatial resolution of a 140-meter telescope, enabling the positions of exoplanets to be measured to within 50 microarcseconds, the circumplanetary environment to be resolved to sub-au scales, and the first direct detection of a radial-velocity discovered exoplanet. Both techniques also unlock the ability to study giant planets at 1-10 au like our own Jupiter. Moving to space, the Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Instrument will demonstrate high-order wavefront control and potentially image a planet in reflected light for the first time, allowing us to measure planetary albedo. I will highlight recent science results from these instruments, summarize lessons learned in pioneering these techniques, and discuss their prospects for imaging habitable worlds on the next generation of observatories.