| Name: Abhijit Chakraborty |
| Affiliation: Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India |
| Conference ID: ASI2026_818 |
| Title: Bhaskaracharya Observatory for the Search of Exoplanets (BOSE): Towards the discovery of Earth’s twin |
| Abstract Type: Oral |
| Abstract Category: Sun, Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology |
| Author(s) and Co-Author(s) with Affiliation: Abhiiit Chakraborty(Physical Research Laboratory), Kapil Kumar Bharadwaj(Physical Research Laboratory), Neelam Prasad(Physical Research Laboratory), Rishikesh Sharma(Physical Research Laboratory), Churchil Dwivedi(Physical Research Laboratory), Kevikumar Lad(Physical Research Laboratory), Vishal Joshi(Physical Research Laboratory) |
| Abstract: The Bhaskaracharya Observatory for the Search of Exoplanets (BOSE) is a proposed Indian space-based discovery and legacy mission designed to detect Earth-size exoplanets and potential Earth twins using high-precision transit photometry, proposed by the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL). Despite nearly three decades of exoplanet discoveries, the detection of a true Earth analogue remains beyond current observational capabilities. BOSE is designed to overcome these limitations through continuous, long-baseline photometric monitoring from the Sun–Earth L2 point. The payload consists of two co-aligned 500-mm clear-aperture refractive telescopes operating over the 500–1000 nm wavelength range, mounted on a single platform. The two telescopes will jointly monitor a ~400 deg² field using a focal plane mosaic comprising eight 14 K × 14 K low-noise sCMOS detectors. The mission is expected to achieve a photometric precision of ~30 ppm for 11th-magnitude stars and ~40 ppm for 12th-magnitude stars in one hour of effective exposure.
The nominal mission lifetime is seven years, during which two optimized fields in the Galactic plane will be observed continuously for 3.5 years each. Target fields have been selected using Gaia DR3, yielding a cumulative sample of ~800,000 stars dominated by main-sequence populations. End-to-end mission simulations indicate the potential discovery of 10-500 Earth-twins, along with a substantial population of short and long-period planetary systems of up to 6000.
With a spatial resolution of 2.65 arcsec/pixel, BOSE significantly reduces source contamination in crowded fields while combining wide field coverage and uninterrupted temporal sampling. In addition to its primary exoplanet science goals, BOSE will deliver high-value datasets for asteroseismology and time-domain astrophysics. The mission is envisaged for launch in the 2032–2035 time frame.
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