Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
May 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...210.3307g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #33.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.146
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
New Worlds Observer (NWO) is a concept for the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission using an external occulter. In this paper, we discuss the advantages and challenges associated with this architecture based on extensive modeling of the optical performance of the occulter and of the observing efficiency. We focus on NWO’s ability to complete a feasible TPF schedule designed to detect 30 Exo-Earths around nearby stars, if ηearth 1.
At optical wavelengths, the external occulter creates a large, deep shadow in which the telescope spacecraft flies. This allows NWO to detect faint, exo-solar planets from a small inner working angle out to the full field of view of the camera. Since the starlight suppression is done entirely by the occulter, the telescope does not need to meet any stringent requirements for optical performance. Because of this, it has a very high throughput and a large portion of its time can also be used for general astrophysics.
The biggest challenge posed by this system is the large separation between the telescope and the occulter - tens of thousands of kilometers. This means that in order to move from observing one star to the next, the occulter must move a large distance in space. We show that a NWO mission can be created that allows for 100 target stars with 1-3 revisits each and integration times long enough to allow spectroscopy of promising candidates. Retargeting the occulter can be done within a reasonable amount of time and with feasible amounts of fuel.
Glassman Tiffany Michelle
Lo Amy S.
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