The ability of the Space Telescope to detect extra-solar planetary systems

The Space Telescope can play a key role in searching for and investigating the contents of extra-solar planetary systems. For about 90 nearby stars, positional variations due to major planets would be well within the astrometric capability of the Wide-Field/Planetary Camera system. Since the centroids of star images will be determined to within a milliarcsecond down to 22nd magnitude, there will be an abundance of reference stars at very small angular distances from each planetary system candidate, and they will have small enough motions of their own to provide a reference frame of the stability required.Presented at the Symposium Star Catalogues, Positional Astronomy and Celestial Mechanics, held in honor of Paul Herget at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, November 30, 1978.