An Extrasolar Planet Census with a Space-based Microlensing Survey

Understand

A space-based gravitational microlensing exoplanet survey will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses down to 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity.

• This includes analogs to all the Solar System's planets except for Mercury, as well as most types of planets predicted by planet formation theories.
• Such a survey will provide results on the frequency of planets around all types of stars except those with short lifetimes.
• Close-in planets with separations < 0.5 AU are invisible to a space-based microlensing survey, but these can be found by Kepler.