MEarth Project
Part of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona
The MEarth Project (pronounced mirth [1] ) is a United States NSF -funded [2] robotic exoplanet observatory that is part of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins . The project monitors the brightness of thousands of red dwarf stars with the goal of finding transiting planets . As red dwarf stars are small, any transiting planet blocks a larger proportion of starlight than transits around a Sun-like star would, allowing smaller planets to be detected through ground-based observations. [3]
Equipment
The original MEarth-North [4] observatory on Mount Hopkins consists of eight RC Optical Systems 40 cm (16 in) f / 9 Ritchey-Chrétien telescopes equipped with 2048 × 2048 Apogee U42 CCDs, infrared filters, and equatorial mounts . [5] It began observations in January 2008. [3]
In 2014, the MEarth-South observatory began operations [6] from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory site east of La Serena, Chile , extending MEarth's coverage to the southern celestial hemisphere using a nearly-identical eight-telescope array. [4] Unlike MEarth-North, the telescopes in Chile are also sensitive to red light. [4]
Planets discovered
References
- ↑ "The MEarth Project: Searching for Habitable Exoplanets around Nearby Small Stars" .
- ↑ "Award Abstract # 1616624: The MEarth Project: An All Sky Survey of the Closest Low-mass Stars to Uncover the Very Best Terrestrial Exoplanets for Further Study" .
- 1 2 Irwin, Jonathan; Charbonneau, David; Nutzman, Philip; Falco, Emilio (2008-05-01). "The MEarth project: searching for transiting habitable super-Earths around nearby M dwarfs" . Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union . 4 (Symposium S253): 37–43. arXiv : 0807.1316 . doi : 10.1017/S1743921308026215 .
- 1 2 3 "The MEarth Project: Telescopes" .
- ↑ Berta, Zachory; Irwin, Jonathan; Charbonneau, David; Burke, Christopher; Falco, Emilio (2012-10-11). "TRANSIT DETECTION IN THE MEarth SURVEY OF NEARBY M DWARFS: BRIDGING THE CLEAN-FIRST, SEARCH-LATER DIVIDE" . The Astronomical Journal . 144 (5). arXiv : 1206.4715 . doi : 10.1088/0004-6256/144/5/145 .
- ↑ Newton, Elisabeth; Mondrik, Nicholas; Irwin, Jonathan; Winters, Jennifer; Charbonneau, David (2018-10-18). "New Rotation Period Measurements for M Dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere: An Abundance of Slowly Rotating, Fully Convective Stars" . The Astronomical Journal . 156 (5). arXiv : 1807.09365 . doi : 10.3847/1538-3881/aad73b .
- ↑ "Welcome to LHS 1140b: A Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone" . 2017-04-20.
External links
Ground-based |
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