MINERVA: Small Planets from Small Telescopes

Document Type

Presentation Abstract

Presentation Date

9-8-2014

Abstract

Planet occurrence studies such as NASA's Kepler mission are clearly demonstrating that small rocky planets are common in our Galaxy. A significant portion are located in the Habitable Zone (HZ) of their host star, where surface liquid water is possible. While these results are primarily based on stars typically several hundred light years distant, such planets are presumably common around nearby stars as well. These planets would be extremely valuable targets for follow-up studies with the next generation of telescopes, particularly if any are also transiting. Finding small HZ planets around nearby stars requires high precision RV measurements and high cadence observing to densely sample the orbital phase and beat down stellar noise sources. Project MINERVA is a robotic observatory dedicated to detection of rocky planets in the HZ around nearby stars. I will discuss our approach to dispatch scheduling and present simulated Minerva observations to estimate our expected exoplanet yield.

Additional Details

Monday, September 8, 2014 at 3:10 p.m. in Math 103
4:00 p.m. Refreshments in Math Lounge 109

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