Global Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets from Scattered Light Curves as a Probe of the Habitat

Details Global Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets from Scattered Light Curves as a Probe of the Habitat Global Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets from Scattered Light Curves as a Probe of the Habitat

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.2903f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #29.03

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As the next step after the recent discoveries of exoplanets in habitable zones, it is desirable to develop techniques to investigate them farther to determine whether or not they really harbor life. In this context, it is valuable to consider a well-defined question how we would know about the habitat if we were to observe an Earth-twin at an astronomical distance.
In principle, the scattered light of planets contains rich information of planetary surface and the atmosphere, and indeed the new instruments for direct imaging in optical/near-IR are actively proposed. However, interpretation of the spatially unresolved light from the planets can be complicated especially in the case of highly inhomogeneous planets like our own Earth.
Here we demonstrate the 2-dimensional mapping of the surface from the scattered light variation assuming a continuous observation for 1 year (Kawahara and Fujii, 2010, 2011). We create mock light curves of the Earth including the realistic cloud cover and the seasonal variation, and invert them to the surface inhomogeneity by making the most of the spin rotation and orbital motion of the planet and using the technique of tomography. The recovered map successfully traces the actual cloud distribution, continents, and even the localized red-edge feature of vegetation. Therefore, such long observations of scattered light will give us the access to the landscape of exoplanets with diverse surface components.
Another consequence of this tomography is the measurement of the planetary obliquity, which is a key parameter both for habitability and to constrain the formation scenario. We discuss the detectability of obliquity assuming a realistic instrumental design.

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