Search results for "Exoplanet"
showing 10 items of 40 documents
Protoplanetary Disks, Solar System Minor Bodies and Origin of Life
2001
In the last decade, planetary science researchers have obtained significant advances on the origin and evolution of life on Earth. The increasing resolution and the development of new instruments (as space telescopes and adaptative optics) has provided first detailed images on protoplanetary disks and star formation regions. Moreover, in the last few years, doppler spectroscopic technique has confirmed the presence of extrasolar planets. These evidence shows planetary formation as a continuous and very common process in the Cosmos, indicating that our Solar System is not too special as was suggested in the past.
Trumpler 14 and 16 in the Carina nebula
2017
We present the first extensive spectroscopic study of the global population in star clusters Trumpler 16, Trumpler 14, and Collinder 232 in the Carina nebula, using data from the Gaia-ESO Survey, down to solar-mass stars. In addition to the standard homogeneous survey data reduction, a special processing was applied here because of the bright nebulosity surrounding Carina stars. We find about 400 good candidate members ranging from OB types down to slightly subsolar masses. About 100 heavily reddened early-type Carina members found here were previously unrecognized or poorly classified, including two candidate O stars and several candidate Herbig Ae/Be stars. Their large brightness makes th…
Walking on exoplanets: Is Star Wars right?
2016
As the number of detected extrasolar planets increases, exoplanet databases become a valuable resource, confirming some details about planetary formation, but also challenging our theories with new unexpected properties.
The Bimodal Distribution in Exoplanet Radii: Considering Varying Core Compositions and $\rm H_{2}$ Envelope's Sizes
2020
Several models have been introduced in order to explain the radius distribution in exoplanet radii observed by Fulton et al. (2017) with one peak at $\rm \sim 1.3 R_{\oplus} $ the other at $\rm \sim 2.4 R_{\oplus} $ and the minimum at $\rm \sim 1.75R_{\oplus} $. In this paper we focus on the hypothesis that the exoplanet size distribution is caused by stellar XUV-induced atmospheric loss. We evolve $10^{6}$ synthetic exoplanets by exposing them to XUV irradiation from synthetic ZAMS stars. For each planet we set a different interior composition which ranged from $\rm 100 \: wt\%$ Fe (very dense) through $\rm 100 \: wt\%$ $\rm MgSiO_{3}$ (average density) and to $\rm 100 \: wt\%$ $\rm H_{2}O…
Hiding in plain sight: observing planet-starspot crossings with the James Webb Space Telescope
2021
Transiting exoplanets orbiting active stars frequently occult starspots and faculae on the visible stellar disc. Such occultations are often rejected from spectrophotometric transits, as it is assumed they do not contain relevant information for the study of exoplanet atmopsheres. However, they can provide useful constraints to retrieve the temperature of active features and their effect on transmission spectra. We analyse the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope in the determination of the spectra of occulted starspots, despite its lack of optical wavelength instruments on board. Focusing on K and M spectral types, we simulate starspots with different temperatures and in differen…
Exploring Super-Earth Surfaces: Albedo of Near-Airless Magma Ocean Planets and Topography
2021
In this paper we propose an analytic function for the spherical albedo values of airless and near-airless magma ocean planets (AMOPs). We generated 2-D fractal surfaces with varying compositions onto which we individually threw 10,000 light rays. Using an approximate form of the Fresnel equations we measured how much of the incident light was reflected. Having repeated this algorithm on varying surface roughnesses we find the spherical albedo as a function of the Hurst exponent, the geochemical composition of the magma, and the wavelength. As a proof of concept, we used our model on Kepler-10b to demonstrate the applicability of our approach. We present the spherical albedo values produced …
iLocater: a diffraction-limited Doppler spectrometer for the Large Binocular Telescope
2016
We are developing a stable and precise spectrograph for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) named "iLocater." The instrument comprises three principal components: a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph that operates in the YJ-bands (0.97-1.30 microns), a fiber-injection acquisition camera system, and a wavelength calibration unit. iLocater will deliver high spectral resolution (R~150,000-240,000) measurements that permit novel studies of stellar and substellar objects in the solar neighborhood including extrasolar planets. Unlike previous planet-finding instruments, which are seeing-limited, iLocater operates at the diffraction limit and uses single mode fibers to eliminate the effects of m…
Using the transit of Venus to probe the upper planetary atmosphere
2015
The atmosphere of a transiting planet shields the stellar radiation providing us with a powerful method to estimate its size and density. In particular, because of their high ionization energy, atoms with high atomic number (Z) absorb short-wavelength radiation in the upper atmosphere, undetectable with observations in visible light. One implication is that the planet should appear larger during a primary transit observed in high energy bands than in the optical band. The last Venus transit in 2012 offered a unique opportunity to study this effect. The transit has been monitored by solar space observations from Hinode and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). We measure the radius of Venus duri…
Methane line parameters in the HITRAN2012 database
2013
International audience; The compilation of methane molecular line parameters was updated to include new global analyses and measurements for 12CH4, 13CH4 and 12CH3D. Over 70% of the methane parameters in HITRAN2008 were replaced; existing parameters retained were the microwave lines and the Dyad of 13CH4 near 7 μm and ν6 of 13CH3D near 8.7 μm, 12CH3D (7-4076 cm-1), hot bands of 12CH4 (1887-3370 cm-1) and normal sample CH4 (4800-5550 cm-1 and 8000-9200 cm-1). With a minimum intensity at 296 K in units of cm-1/(molecule cm-2) set to 10-37 for the far-IR and 10-29 for the mid- and near-IR, the methane database increased from 290,091 lines in HITRAN2008 to 468,013 lines, and three-fourths of th…
Gamma Vel cluster membership and IMF
2016
Understanding the properties of young open clusters, such as the Initial Mass Function (IMF), star formation history and dynamic evolution, is crucial to obtain reliable theoretical predictions of the mechanisms involved in the star formation process. We want to obtain a list, as complete as possible, of confirmed members of the young open cluster Gamma Velorum, with the aim of deriving general cluster properties such as the IMF. We used all available spectroscopic membership indicators within the Gaia-ESO public archive together with literature photometry and X-ray data and, for each method, we derived the most complete list of candidate cluster members. Then, we considered photometry, gra…