The scientific interest in directly image and identifying Earth-like planets within the Habitable Zone (HZ) around nearby stars is driving the design of specialized direct imaging mission such as ACESAT, EXO-C, EXO-S and AFTA-C. The inner edge of Alpha Cen A and B Habitable Zone is found at exceptionally large angular separations of 0.7 and 0.4 arcseconds respectively. This enables direct imaging of the system with a 0.3m class telescope. Contrast ratios in the order of 1e-10 are needed to image Earth-brightness planets. Low-resolution (5-band) spectra of all planets, will allow establishing the presence and amount of an atmosphere. This star system configuration is optimal for a specialized small, and stable space telescope, that can achieve high-contrast but has limited resolution. This paper describes an innovative instrument design and a mission concept based on a full Silicon Carbide off-axis telescope, which has a Phase Induce Amplitude Apodization coronagraph embedded in the telescope. This architecture maximizes stability and throughput. A Multi-Star Wave Front algorithm is implemented to drive a deformable mirror controlling simultaneously diffracted light from the on-axis and binary companion star. The instrument has a Focal Plane Occulter to reject starlight into a high-precision pointing control camera. Finally we utilize a Orbital Differential Imaging (ODI) post-processing method that takes advantage of a highly stable environment (Earth-trailing orbit) and a continuous sequence of images spanning 2 years, to reduce the final noise floor in post processing to 2e-11 levels, enabling high confidence and at least 90 percent completeness detections of Earth-like planets.
Astrometric Methods for Detecting Exomoons Orbiting Imaged Exoplanets: Prospects for Detecting Moons Orbiting a Giant Planet in $α$ Centauri A's Habitable Zone
提出模拟框架研究通过天体测量信号探测系外卫星，发现专用空间望远镜和39m地基望远镜可在五年任务中探测到环绕 $α$ 半人马座 A 假想巨行星的地球大小卫星。
Analyzing the Habitable Zones of Circumbinary Planets Using Machine Learning
Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学）；Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院喷气推进实验室）；Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文研究所）
Water Vapor and Clouds on the Habitable-Zone Sub-Neptune Exoplanet K2-18b
开普勒任务的结果表明，在附近低质量恒星的宜居带中，小行星（$<3$ $R_\oplus$）的出现率可能高达80%。尽管如此丰富，探测任何宜居带行星的条件和大气特性都是极其困难的，迄今为止仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们报告检测到水蒸气和可能存在的液体和冰水云的大气中的$2.6$ $R_\oplus$宜居带行星K2- 18 b。在K2- 18 b的中层大气中同时探测到水蒸气和云是特别有趣的，因为K2- 18 b从其主恒星（$1368_{-107}^{+114}$ W m $^{-2}$）接收的总日射量几乎与地球从太阳接收的总日射量（1361 W m $^{-2}$）相同，从而为水蒸气凝结和解释探测到的云提供了合适的条件。在这项研究中，我们使用HST/WFC 3观测了K2- 18 b的9次凌日，以达到探测水蒸气所需的灵敏度，我们用斯皮策和K2观测补充了这一数据集，以获得更宽的波长覆盖范围。虽然我们在K2- 18 b上探测到的厚的以氢为主的包层意味着这颗行星不是真正的地球类似物，但我们的观测表明，具有液态水合适条件的低质量宜居带行星可以用最先进的望远镜进行观测。
Circumstellar Habitable Zones of Binary Star Systems in the Solar Neighborhood
双星和多星系统构成了太阳附近恒星星族总数的一半以上（Kiseleva-Eggleton and Eggleton 2001）。它们的频繁出现以及超过70颗（Schneider et al. 2011）行星已经被发现处于这样的配置-最值得注意的是半人马座α B的大地伴星（Dumusque et al. 2012）-使它们成为寻找可居住世界的有趣目标。最近的研究（Eggl et al. 2012 b，Forgan 2012）表明，尽管引力和辐射环境存在变化，但确实存在行星可以在长期动力学时间尺度上保持在可居住日射限制内的星周区域。在这篇文章中，我们提供了宜居带的19个近S型双星系统的依帕科斯和WDS目录的半长轴之间的1和100 AU。据此，我们解释了第二颗恒星对类地行星的动力学和辐射影响。在提出的19个系统中，17个系统在至少一个组件周围提供动态稳定的宜居带。这17个潜在宜居系统包含5颗F、3颗G、7颗K和16颗M类恒星。由于它们靠近太阳系（d < 31 pc），使得选定的双星成为观测活动的精致目标，我们提供了对偏心拱星轨道上可居住的类地行星产生的径向速度，天体测量和过境签名的估计。
