The “Golden Age” of transiting exoplanets: The legacy of the CoRoT and Kepler space missions

The study of exoplanets has evolved into one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of astrophysics. We are now in an era where we are not only discovering planets around other stars, but also characterizing them in terms of their true mass, radius, density, surface temperature, and atmospheric features. Ushering this "Golden Age" of characterization studies have been two space missions devoted to the detection of exoplanets via the transit method: Europe's CoRoT Mission and NASA's Kepler Mission.

These space telescopes have produced unexpected discoveries that have shown planetary systems to be quite diverse and unlike our own solar system.

In 2013, both Kepler and CoRoT missions came to an end. I will discuss the exciting discoveries made by these pioneering exoplanet space missions as well as what future studies of exoplanets have in store for us.