Exoplanet capability of the JWST ?

[Manchurian Taikonaut]

I hope the Moderators dont mind I created my own thread instead of posting in an old one.

With the TPF mission delayed for an indefinite time period I suppose that responsibility of exoplanet imagery lies now with JWST. I also see that ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 has zero mention of Darwin, now this might not mean anything because ESA is not NASA and at the best of times ESA PR efforts are underfunded and about as good as Russia's or communist China. But if exoplanet science is not taken to the next step, then exoplanet science for the years will depend on mission like Corot and JWST. Which optical instrument on JWST will be best suited for studying planets ? and what kind of performance can we expect from Hubbles replacement ?

[Kullat Nunu]

JWST operates in infrared only, so it is more accurately a successor of Spitzer than Hubble. Which is good for extrasolar planet science. Imaging planets in infrared is far easier, because the brightness contrast between the star and the planet is much smaller. In addition, young giant planets glow brightly in IR which makes them easily detectable if there are no bright stars nearby. It should easily detect planets similar to 2M1207 b. JWST might be also able to find true Jupiter analogs around the nearest stars.

Spitzer has successfully detected IR radiation from extrasolar planets directly, so one can expect that JWST can produce much higher-quality data.

PS. You forgot Kepler, which like CoRoT will search for transiting extrasolar planets. It is capable of detecting true Earth analogs.

[Manchurian Taikonaut]

thanks

btw do we have a launch date for Kepler ?

[01101001]

btw do we have a launch date for Kepler ?

NASA: Kelper Mission: Mission News and Schedule:

Schedule

Concept Study Mar 2001 to July 2001
Discovery selection Dec. 21, 2001
Phase B Feb 2002 to Oct 2004
Phase C/D Nov 2004 to Oct 2008
Launch February 2009
Commissioning Launch + 30 days
Phase E
Flight operations For 3.5 years from end of commissioning
Data analysis For 5 years from end of commissioning
Optional extended mission Additional 2 yrs of ops and data analysis