# The Critical, Strategic Importance of Adaptive Optics-Assisted Ground-Based Telescopes for the Success of Future NASA Exoplanet Direct Imaging Missions

## TL;DR

Ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics are crucial for exoplanet imaging, aiding NASA missions by detecting planets, validating models, and developing technologies for future space-based observatories.

## Contribution

This paper highlights the strategic importance of adaptive optics-assisted ground-based telescopes for supporting and advancing future NASA exoplanet direct imaging missions.

## Key findings

- Extreme AO on 8-10m telescopes will identify planets for WFIRST-CGI.
- Large telescopes will image rocky planets and identify biomarkers.
- Ground-based AO systems will mature technologies for space missions.

## Abstract

Ground-based telescopes coupled with adaptive optics (AO) have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Over the next decade, extreme AO systems on 8-10m telescopes will 1) mitigate risk for WFIRST-CGI by identifying numerous planets the mission can spectrally characterize, 2) validate performance requirements and motivate improvements to atmosphere models needed to unambiguously characterize solar system-analogues from space, and 3) mature novel technological innovations useful for space. Extremely Large Telescopes can deliver the first thermal infrared (10 $\mu m$) images of rocky planets around Sun-like stars and identify biomarkers. These data provide a future NASA direct imaging flagship mission (i.e. HabEx, LUVOIR) with numerous exo-Earth candidates and critical ancillary information to help clarify whether these planets are habitable.