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S. H. Rhie (University of Notre Dame)
The Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST) is a proposed MIDEX mission to survey microlensing extrasolar planets of Mars mass and upward. GEST/MIDEX telescope has a relatively small diameter (1m) and a large focal plane (~2.2 square degrees) filled with ~0.6 billion red-sensitive 10 micron pixels with large well-depths (> 100,000 electrons). The polar orbit allows continuous view of the target field near the Galactic center and stable PSFs necessary for efficient dithering and undersampling. The mission is designed to be able to monitor about 100 million stars continuously 8 months per year for three consecutive years, and this will produce ~50,000 close-in transit giant planets as well as terrestrial microlensing planets and free-floating planets. An impressive database of variable stars will be one of the biproducts of such a massive survey as is well proved from ground-based microlensing surveys. Here we analyse the effects and utilities of astrometric and parallactic measurements that are more or less uniquely allowed by the fine angular resolutions and high precision photometries of the survey from space.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: srhie@nd.edu