Micro-arcsecond Astrometry Exoplanets Detection around Nearby Stars Forum

The forum Micro-arcsecond Astrometry Exoplanets Detection around Nearby Stars was successfully held at ISSI-Beijing on August 22-23, 2014. A total of 25 leading scientists from around the world participated in this forum convened by Ding Chen (NSSC, China), Michael Shao (Caltech, USA), Doug Lin (UCSC, USA),  Ji Wu (NSSC, China), Maurizio Falanga (ISSI-Beijing, China).

The forum’s main aims were to discuss the current status as well as visions of the detection and characterization of planetary systems consisting in a mixed cortege of terrestrial and giant planets, with a special regard to Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The debate mainly focused on the Space Micro-arcsecond Astrometry to Search for the Terrestrial Exo-Planets (STEP mission), one of the candidate missions for advanced studies in the space science program of the Chinese Academy of Science, with regard to complementary missions.

After starting with an overview of the exoplanet detection and a short introduction of the GAIA mission, the forum continued with a discussion on the key science of the terrestrial planets, its occurrence and evolution as well as the habitable zone of the explanatory system. As a main goal of the forum, possible synergies which can be gained through complementary missions and international collaboration were evaluated. The lively debates contributed to a very successful forum where the participants critically yet constructively discussed all of STEP’s strengths and to what has to be further improved.

An issue of TAIKONG, the ISSI-BJ magazine is devoted to the insight gained at this Forum and distributed to the science communities and space science institutions.