Detecting Distant Planets with Space Telescope

Abstract

In 1981 and in 1984, I offered at the University of Houston, CLC, a course on Space Telescope, the first of its kind. The 22 graduate students were assigned research projects of their own choosing designed for ST. Several chose the detection of planets of other stars, showing the popularity of the search for extraterrestrial life. Space Telescope's six instruments can be used for this purpose in several ways, and the students, most of them scientists and engineers at the NASA Johnson Space Center, proposed to use most of these after ST is launched in 1986 or 1987. The student proposals require a significant fraction of ST observing time over a period of five to ten years, indicating the over-subscription that faces the ST Science Institute. In this paper, I summarize the capability of ST instruments, and recount the techniques likely to be most effective in using them to detect planets of other stars.