PCS -- A Roadmap for Exoearth Imaging with the ELT

Abstract

The main reason behind the small number of directly imaged exoplanets is that such observations are extremely challenging. The intensity contrast between the stellar light reflected by an exoplanet and the star itself is less than one part in a million at angular separations of a few tens of milliarcseconds in the case of nearby giant planets discovered by the radial velocity (RV) method, and it becomes even smaller for larger separations between planet and star. Potentially habitable planets with sizes, masses and temperatures like those of Earth are even harder to observe.