Determine the Average Brightness of Exozodiacal Dust in Visible Wavelengths

Determine the average brightness of exozodiacal dust in visible wavelengths to assess whether exozodiacal light could limit the detection of Earth-like exoplanets with future dedicated exoplanet-imaging missions.

Background

The Roman Coronagraph may provide the first visible-light images of exozodiacal dust around nearby stars. Establishing the average brightness of this dust is important for the design and performance assessment of future direct-imaging missions such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory, because exozodiacal light may constitute a limiting background when detecting Earth-like exoplanets. The paper identifies the average visible-wavelength brightness as an unresolved astrophysical quantity, but does not provide a measurement or determination of it.

References

This is particularly important for informing the development of a dedicated, future, exoplanet-imaging mission, such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), as the average brightness of exozodiacal light in visible wavelengths is currently unknown, and could potentially be a limiting background signal for Earth-like exoplanet detection.

— The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Community Participation Program  (2609.18659 - Savransky et al., 16 Sep 2026) in Section 1, Introduction