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J. Trauger (JPL), K. Stapelfeldt (JPL), D. Backman (F & M Col.), R.A. Brown (STScI), R. Burg (JHU), A. Burrows (U. Arizona), C. Ftaclas (Mich.~Tech.~U.), J.D. Kirkpatrick (IPAC), S. Kulkarni (Caltech), J. Lunine (U. Arizona), G. Marcy (UC Berkeley), D. Redding (JPL), R. Sahai (JPL), B. Woodgate (GSFC)
Eclipse is a proposed Discovery mission to perform the first sensitive imaging study of nearby planetary systems and their evolutionary stages from formation as young stellar objects to their demise as planetary nebulae. During a three-year science mission, Eclipse will directly detect and characterize jovian planets, zodiacal dust structures, and brown dwarf companions associated with stars in the solar neighborhood; survey the protoplanetary disks of nearby molecular clouds; and study the dissolution of planetary systems in the winds of dying stars. The mission will provide fundamental information on the presence and evolution of planetary systems and our Sun's nearest neighbors in the galaxy.
Eclipse is a high-contrast optical telescope for exoplanetary astronomy. Eclipse brings together a 1.8 meter space telescope configured for low optical scattering, a coronagraphic camera for control of diffracted light, and precision active optics for control of scattered light, in an integrated system designed from the outset for high-contrast astronomy. Compared to instruments that will be available to HST, Eclipse reduces diffracted and scattered starlight at one arcsecond separation by an additional three orders of magnitude.