|
Direct imaging is the new frontier in exoplanet detection and the means by which we
will eventually discover a true Earth twin around a Sun-like star.
In this talk, I introduce the new observing techniques like ADI and complicated,
powerful image processing methods like A-LOCI used to directly image planets
and present recent/unpublished results clarifying the strange atmospheric properties
of young imaged, super-jovian planetary companions around HR 8799 and ROXs 42B.
For direct imaging's first decade, we were limited to detecting super-jovian planets at very wide separations. However, the next 5-10 years will see an explosion of new discoveries from extreme adaptive optics imagers capable of revealing many young jovian planets at Jupiter/Saturn-like separations, including the Subaru SCExAO project. I will close by describing the status and unique science case for SCExAO, how TMT's instrumentation may (nearly) image a rocky planet in the habitable zone around nearby stars, and how SCExAO serves as a crucial bridge towards this future. |