Predicted number of planets (as a function of R_P and T_eq) expected to be characterized for the 10 μm imaging scenario described in Sect. 3.3.2. The colors and the small numbers in each cell both indicate the expectation value for that combination of R_P and T_eq, and the histograms show the marginalized distributions. Compared to the planet population accessible in the baseline NIR case shown in Fig. 3, thermal infrared observations mainly detect thermal emission from cooler planets around warmer stars. Note that the scenario simulated here conservatively assumes that planets in the two smallest R_P ranges occur with equal frequency (see Sects. 2.2 and 3.2).