The World Space Observatory–UV Project as a Tool for Exoplanet Science

Abstract

During last three decades, astronomers have had practically continuous access to the 100–300 nm spectral range that is unreachable with ground-based instruments but where astrophysical processes can be efficiently studied with unprecedented capability. The successful International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) observatory, Russian ASTRON mission and successor instruments such as the COS and STIS spectrographs on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) demonstrate the major impact that observations in the UV wavelength range have had on modern astronomy. Many exoplanetary studies have been performed in the UV domain, both Far-UV and Near-UV. This spectral region contains many resonance lines of common elements, including Ly α, which provided a unique possibility to study physical and chemical properties of planetary atmospheres. Future access to space-based observatories is expected to be very limited. For the next decade, the post-HST era, the World Space Observatory UltraViolet (WSO–UV) will be the only large telescope class mission for UV observations, both spectroscopic and imaging. In its potential, the WSO–UV mission is similar to the HST, but all the observing time will be available for UV astronomy. In this chapter, we briefly outline the WSO–UV mission model, instrumentation description, science management plan as well as some of the key science issues that WSO–UV will address during its lifetime. This information should help exoplanet researchers to start to prepare their future observations with WSO–UV.