Letters of Intent received in 2020

LoI 2022-2130
Far furure of exoplanets: science questions and how to address them

Topics

Started approximately in the late 1980s, exoplanetology has up to now unveiled the main gross bulk
characteristics of planets and planetary systems. In the future it will benefit from more and more large
telescopes and advanced space missions. These instruments will dramatically improve their
performance in terms of photometric precision, detection speed, multipixel imaging, high-resolution
spectroscopy, allowing to go much deeper in the knowledge of planets.
Here we outline some science questions which should go beyond these standard improvements and
how to address them.
Our prejudice is that one is never too speculative: experience shows that the speculative predictions
initially not accepted by the community have been confirmed several years later (like
spectrophotometry of transits or circumbinary planets).

Rationale

This meeting will address all aspects of exoplanets.
It will mainly deal with science questions which could be addressed in the 2050 and beyond era, for instance in the framework of the ESA Voyage 2050 initiative.
Some general instrumentation approaches will be described to show how to solve these science questions, from multipixel imaging to the preparation of interstellar missions.
These science questions will from the detailed characterization of exoplanets, like oceans, continents, refief (mountains) and volcanoes to the search for bio- and techno-signatures.
While 2050+ may appear far away in the future, it is today that we must start to think about how to prepare this future, following the example of the Breakthrough Initiative.