https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20134715004
SPICES a small space coronagraph to characterize giant and telluric planets in reflected light
1 LESIA, Obs. Paris/CNRS/Univ. Paris 6/Univ. Paris 7, 92195 Meudon, France
2 LUTH, Obs. Paris/CNRS/Univ. Paris 6/Univ. Paris 7, 92195 Meudon, France
a e-mail: anthony.boccaletti@obspm.fr
SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems) was proposed in 2010 for a a five-year M-class mission in the context of ESA Cosmic Vision. Its purpose is to image and characterize long-period extrasolar planets located at several AUs (0.5-10 AU) from nearby stars (<25 pc) with masses ranging from a few Jupiter masses down to Super-Earths (∼2 Earth radii, ∼10M⊕), possibly habitable. In addition, circumstellar disks as faint as a few times the zodiacal light in the Solar System can be studied. SPICES is based on a 1.5-m off-axis telescope and can perform spectro-polarimetric measurements in the visible (450–900 nm) at a spectral resolution of about 40. This paper summarizes the top science program and the choices made to conceive the instrument. The performance is illustrated for a few emblematic cases.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
