Theresa Lueftinger (European Space Agency, ESA/ESTEC): Missions to explore exoplanets: Ariel - The ESA M4 Space Mission to Focus on the Nature of Exoplanets

Thursday 9 Nov 2023, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

90103Å (Ångströmlaboratoriet)

Title: Missions to explore exoplanets: Ariel - The ESA M4 Space Mission to Focus on the Nature of Exoplanets 
Speaker: Theresa Lueftinger
Affiliation: European Space Agency (ESA/ESTEC)
Time: Thursday 9 November 2023, 1400 to 1500
Location:  90103Å

Abstract: Ariel, the atmospheric remote-sensing infrared exoplanet large-survey, is the M4 mission within the Cosmic Vision science programme of ESA. The goal of Ariel is to investigate the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars in order to address the fundamental questions on how planetary systems form and evolve and to investigate the composition of exoplanetary atmospheres. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will observe hundreds of exoplanets ranging from Jupiter- and Neptune-size down to super-Earth size, in a wide variety of environments, in the visible and the infrared. The main focus of the mission will be on warm and hot planets in orbits close to their star. The analysis of Ariel spectra and photometric data will allow to extract the chemical fingerprints of gases and condensates in the planets’ atmospheres, including the elemental composition for the most favourable targets. The Ariel mission has been developed by a consortium of more than 60 institutes from 15 ESA member state countries, including UK, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Hungary, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, with an additional contribution from NASA and potentially JAXA and CSA.