Exoplanets: Finding, Exploring, and Understanding Alien Worlds

Acknowledgements.- Preface.- Chapter 1: Because WE live on one!: Why planets and exoplanets are important.- Chapter 2: A quick tour of the exoplanet menagerie.- Chapter 3: An exoplanet retrospective.- Chapter 4: In the beginning: the first exoplanet discoveries.- Chapter 5: On the track of alien planets: The radial velocity or Doppler method.- Chapter 6: On the track of alien planets: The transit method.- Chapter 7: On the track of alien planets: direct imaging and observation.- Chapter 8: On the track of alien planets: Gravitational microlensing.- Chapter 9: On the track of alien planets: Timing.- Chapter 10: On the track of alien planets: Other approaches.- Chapter 11: Where do we go from here?: Future approaches to exoplanet detection and study.- Chapter 12: Exoplanets revealed: what they are really like.- Chapter 13: Exoplanets and exoplanetary systems: Pasts and futures.- Chapter 14: Future homes for humankind?.- Appendices.- Appendix I: Nomenclature or What's in a name.- Appendix II: Note on distances, sizes, and masses, etc..- Appendix III: Further reading.- Appendix IV: Technical background.- Appendix V: Names, Acronyms, and Abbreviations.- Index.