The Ariel Target List: The Impact of TESS and the Potential for Characterizing Multiple Planets within a System

The ESA Ariel mission has been adopted for launch in 2029 and will conduct a survey of around 1000 exoplanetary atmospheres during its primary mission life. By providing homogeneous data sets with a high signal-to-noise ratio and wide wavelength coverage, Ariel will unveil the atmospheric demographics of these faraway worlds, helping to constrain planet formation and evolution processes on a galactic scale. Ariel seeks to undertake a statistical survey of a diverse population of planets; therefore, the sample of planets from which this selection can be made is of the utmost importance. While many suitable targets have already been found, hundreds more will be discovered before the mission is operational. Previous studies have used predictions of exoplanet detections to forecast the available planet population by the launch date of Ariel, with the most recent noting that the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) alone should provide over 1000 potential targets. In this work, we consider the planet candidates found to date by TESS to show that, with the addition of already confirmed planets, Ariel will already have a more than sufficient sample to choose its target list from once these candidates are validated. We showcase the breadth of this population, as well as exploring, for the first time, the ability of Ariel to characterize multiple planets within a single system. Comparative planetology of worlds orbiting the same star, as well as across the wider population, will undoubtedly revolutionize our understanding of planet formation and evolution.

Automated summary

The ESA Ariel mission is set to launch in 2029 and will survey around 1000 exoplanetary atmospheres. Ariel will provide homogeneous data sets to unveil the atmospheric demographics of these distant worlds and help understand planet formation and evolution processes. With a sufficient sample of planets to choose from, Ariel can also characterize multiple planets within the same system.