Observations of Exocomets
Auteurs : Judith Korth, Azib Norazman, Raphäel Bendahan-West, Grant Kennedy, Cristina Madurga Favieres, Daniela Iglesias, Olena Shubina, Siyi Xu, Nathan X. Roth
Résumé scientifique
Active small bodies in extrasolar systems, the extrasolar analogues of Solar System comets, provide insights into the orbital evolution and physical processes shaping planetary systems. Since the discovery of exocomets around $β$ Pictoris, these small, icy bodies have shown the potential to become key probes for understanding planetary formation and migration. This review presents an overview of current observational techniques used to detect exocomets, focusing on individual systems and large-scale searches. We discuss photometric methods that identify exocomet transits through asymmetric light curves and spectroscopic techniques revealing cometary gases via time-variable absorption lines. Despite progress, significant open questions remain regarding the physical properties, occurrence rates, and similarities between exocomets and their Solar System counterparts. This review explores future opportunities in observational exocomet research, highlighting advancements required to further our understanding of these active small bodies and their role in the context of planetary system evolution.
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Exocomets from a Solar System PerspectiveP. Strøm, D. Bodewits, M. Knight et al. · 2020 · Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific · cité 25 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More recently, they have been detected through photometric transits from space, and through far-IR/mm gas emission within debris disks. As (exo)comets are considered to contain the most pristine material accessible in stellar systems, they hold the potential to give us information about early stage formation and evolution conditions of extra solar systems. In the solar system, comets carry the physical and chemical memory of the protoplanetary disk environment wher…
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An Overview of ExocometsDaniela Iglesias, I. Rebollido, Azib Norazman et al. · 2025 · Space Science Reviews · cité 5 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
We give a general overview of what the scientific community refers to as “exocomets”. The general definition of exocomets, as presented in this work, is discussed and compared with Solar System comets and interstellar objects, addressing their detection around main-sequence stars as well as orbiting white dwarfs. We introduce the different types of exocomet observations, highlighting the difference between exocometary ‘bodies’ and exocometary ‘material’. We provide a census of all exocometary system candidates detected so far, both via spectroscopy and photometry, including detections around white dwarfs.
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Exocomets: A spectroscopic surveyI. Rebollido, C. Eiroa, B. Montesinos et al. · 2020 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · cité 45 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Context. While exoplanets are now routinely detected, the detection of small bodies in extrasolar systems remains challenging. Since the discovery of sporadic events, which are interpreted to be exocomets (falling evaporating bodies) around β Pic in the early 1980s, only ∼20 stars have been reported to host exocomet-like events. Aims. We aim to expand the sample of known exocomet-host stars, as well as to monitor the hot-gas environment around stars with previously known exocometary activity. Methods. We have obtained high-resolution optical spectra of a heterogeneous sample of 117 main-sequence stars in the spectral type range from B8 to G8. The data were collected in 14 observing campaigns…
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Imaging of exocomets with infrared interferometryMarkus Janson, J. Patel, S. Ringqvist et al. · 2023 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · cité 3 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Active comets have been detected in several exoplanetary systems, although so far only indirectly, when the dust or gas in the extended coma has transited in front of the stellar disk. The large optical surface and relatively high temperature of an active cometary coma also makes it suitable to study with direct imaging, but the angular separation is generally too small to be reachable with present-day facilities. However, future imaging facilities with the ability to detect terrestrial planets in the habitable zones of nearby systems will also be sensitive to exocomets in such systems. Here we examine several aspects of exocomet imaging, particularly in the context of the Large Interferomet…
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CHEOPS’s hunt for exocomets: photometric observations of 5 VulI. Rebollido, Sebastian Zieba, D. Iglesias et al. · 2023 · Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · cité 4 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
The presence of minor bodies in exoplanetary systems is in most cases inferred through infra-red excesses, with the exception of exocomets. Even if over 35 years have passed since the first detection of exocomets around β Pic, only ∼ 25 systems are known to show evidence of evaporating bodies, and most of them have only been observed in spectroscopy. With the appearance of new high-precision photometric missions designed to search for exoplanets, such as CHEOPS, a new opportunity to detect exocomets is available. Combining data from CHEOPS and TESS we investigate the lightcurve of 5 Vul, an A-type star with detected variability in spectroscopy, to search for non periodic transits that could …
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Exocomet orbit fitting: accelerating coma absorption during transits of β PictorisG. Kennedy · 2018 · Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · cité 9 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Comets are a remarkable feature in our night sky, visible on their passage through the inner Solar system as the Sun's energy sublimates ices and liberates surface material, generating beautiful comae, dust, and ion tails. Comets are also thought to orbit other stars, and are the most promising interpretation of sporadic absorption features (i.e. transits) seen in spectra of stars such as β Pictoris and 49 Ceti. These "exocomets" are thought to form and evolve in the same way as in the Solar system, and as in the Solar system we may gain insight into their origins by deriving their orbits. In the case of β Pictoris, orbits have been estimated indirectly, using the radial velocity of the abso…
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Transiting exocomets detected in broadband light by TESS in the $β$ Pictoris systemSebastian Zieba, Konstanze Zwintz, Matthew A. Kenworthy et al. · 2019 · A&A 625, L13 (2019) · cité 46 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
We search for signs of falling evaporating bodies (FEBs, also known as exocomets) in photometric time series obtained for $\beta$ Pictoris after fitting and removing its $\delta$ Scuti type pulsation frequencies. Using photometric data obtained by the TESS satellite we determine the pulsational properties of the exoplanet host star $\beta$ Pictoris through frequency analysis. We then prewhiten the 54 identified $\delta$ Scuti p-modes and investigate the residual photometric time series for the presence of FEBs. We identify three distinct dipping events in the light curve of $\beta$ Pictoris over a 105-day period. These dips have depths from 0.5 to 2 millimagnitudes and durations of up to 2 d…
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Interstellar Objects and ExocometsAlan Fitzsimmons, Karem Meech, Luca Matrà et al. · 2023 · Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · cité 3 fois · Résumé IA disponible
Résumé scientifique
In this chapter we review our knowledge of our galaxy's cometary population outside our Oort Cloud - exocomets and Interstellar Objects (ISOs). We start with a brief overview of planetary system formation, viewed as a general process around stars. We then take a more detailed look at the creation and structure of exocometary belts, as revealed by the unprecedented combination of theoretical and observational advances in recent years. The existence and characteristics of individual exocomets orbiting other stars is summarized, before looking at the mechanisms by which they may be ejected into interstellar space. The discovery of the first two ISOs is then described, along with the surprising …
Les travaux antérieurs sur lesquels il s’appuie
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Two families of exocomets in the β Pictoris systemF. Kiefer, A. L. D. Etangs, J. Boissier et al. · 2014 · Nature · cité 100 fois · Pas encore résumé
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Likely Transiting Exocomets Detected By Kepler.S. Rappaport, A. Vanderburg, T. Jacobs et al. · 2017 · Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · cité 68 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
We present the first good evidence for exocomet transits of a host star in continuum light in data from the Kepler mission. The Kepler star in question, KIC 3542116, is of spectral type F2V and is quite bright at Kp = 10. The transits have a distinct asymmetric shape with a steeper ingress and slower egress that can be ascribed to objects with a trailing dust tail passing over the stellar disk. There are three deeper transits with depths of ≃ 0.1% that last for about a day, and three that are several times more shallow and of shorter duration. The transits were found via an exhaustive visual search of the entire Kepler photometric data set, which we describe in some detail. We review the met…
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Population of excited levels of Fe+, Ni+ and Cr+ in exocomets' gaseous tailsT. Vrignaud, A. L. D. Etangs · 2024 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · cité 6 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
The star is widely known for harbouring a large population of exocomets, which create variable absorption signatures in the stellar spectrum as they transit the star. Although the physical and chemical properties of these objects have long been elusive, the recently developed exocomet curve of growth technique has, for the first time, enabled estimates of exocometary column densities and excitation temperatures, based on absorption measurements in mutliple spectral lines. Using this new tool, we present a refined study of a exocomet observed on December 6 1997 with the Hubble Space Telescope. We first show that the comet's signature in lines is well explained by the transit of two gaseous co…
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Exocometary Physics: Material Release and TailsT. Vrignaud, D. Bodewits, J. Hanlon et al. · 2026 · Space Science Reviews · cité 1 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Despite decades of observations, the physical processes governing mass loss from small bodies beyond our Solar System remain poorly constrained. These “exocomets” are often treated as analogs of Solar System comet, yet the stellar environments they inhabit spans a wide range in terms of luminosity, stellar wind intensity, and evolutionary stage, leading to potentially very diverse physical behaviors. Within our Solar System, small bodies lose gas and dust through a range of mechanisms, including sublimation, desorption, impacts, and/or sputtering. Once released, the composition and dynamics of the ejecta are then altered by additional processes, such as dust sublimation, ionization, and radi…
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Exocomet Models in Transit: Light Curve Morphology in the Optical—Near Infrared Wavelength RangeSzil'ard K'alm'an, Gy. M. Szab'o, C. Kiss · 2024 · Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific · cité 5 fois · Pas encore résumé
Résumé scientifique
Following the widespread practice of exoplanetary transit simulations, various presumed components of an extrasolar system can be examined in numerically simulated transits, including exomoons, rings around planets, and the deformation of exoplanets. Template signals can then be used to efficiently search for light curve features that mark specific phenomena in the data, and they also provide a basis for feasibility studies of instruments and search programs. In this paper, we present a method for exocomet transit light curve calculations using arbitrary dust distributions in transit. The calculations, spanning four distinct materials (carbon, graphite, pyroxene, and olivine), and multiple d…
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