MEarth Project
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
[edit]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
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "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".
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b c "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): 145. 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): 217. 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
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