Start year
2013
Organizational Unit
Organizing institutions
Grants related:
General
Description
The search for life in the universe has been driven by recent discoveries of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets), becoming one of the most active fields in modern astrophysics. The growing number of new exoplanets discovered in recent years and the recent advance on the study of their atmospheres are not only providing new valuable information about its physical properties, but also allowing to constrain the properties of the Solar system's planets within a more global context. The field is approaching to the important discovery of the first potentially habitable planets and encouraging more detailed studies of them. With the launching of upcoming related satellites like JWST, CHEOPS, TESS, ARIEL and PLATO, the exoplanets field faces a bright future.
It is for this reason that this field is aid of, and at the same time promotes, the development of increasingly sensitive and stable instrumentation for both, ground-based telescopes and space missions. Our group is particularly prepared for these two fronts. On the one hand, during the last years we have developed observational and reduction techniques of exoplanet transits data for the ORM telescopes, ours being one of the most productive groups in the exploitation of GTC. On the other hand, all ESA space missions (present and future) related to exoplanets have one or more components of the project as CoIs. Within the frame of this project, we intend that IAC researchers maintain an advantageous position regarding the operation of OSIRIS and CanariCam, first light
GTC's instruments, and participate in the construction, commissioning and operation of new instruments such as the high resolution optical spectrograph HORUS at GTC. The exploitation of the photometry and spectroscopy of transits with LIRIS at WHT is also one of our principal interests, especially in preparation for the installation in 2015 of EMIR on the GTC .
To summarize, the project "Exoplanets and Astrobiology" will focus on these four action lines:
1) The characterization of atmospheric and physical properties of exoplanets (GTC, WHT, ARIEL, HARPSN, CARMENES, ESPRESSO, etc. ..)
2) The search and confirmation of exoplanets by transits techniques (CoRoT, Kepler, K2, CHEOPS, XO, LCOGT, W FC, DISH, etc. ..)
3) The search and confirmation of exoplanet by radial velocity techniques (HARPSN, HORUS, LCOGT, SONG, CARMENES)
4) Astrobiology
Members
Principal investigator
Enric
Pallé Bago
Project staff
Hans Jörg
Deeg Deeg
Nicolas Cédric
Lodieu
Javier Andrés
Licandro Goldaracena
Víctor Javier
Sánchez Bejar
Juan Antonio
Belmonte Avilés
Roi
Alonso Sobrino
Grzegorz
Nowak
Patricia
Chinchilla Gallego
A. L. Cabrera Lavers
Felipe Andrés
Murgas Alcaino
Hannu
Parviainen
Collaborators
Dr.
Paulo Miles Paez
Dr.
Maria Rosa Zapatero Osorio
Dr.
M. Mas Hesse
Dr.
M. Deleuil
Dr.
D. Gandolfi
Dr.
M. Fridlund
Dr.
L. Doyle
Dr.
H. Rauer
Dr.
J. Cabrera
Dr.
Sz. Csizmadia
Dr.
D. Pollacco
Dr.
A. Hatzes
Dr.
T. Mazeh
Dr.
T. Boyajian
Dr.
B. Tingley
Dr.
D. Martin
Dr.
A Triaud
Dr.
D. Fabrycky
Antonio Cabrera Lavers
Results
- Detection of He in the atmosphere of an exoplanet from the ground, published in Science
- Detection of a super-earth around Barnard star, published in Nature
- Detection of the first TESS planets, with several papers of high relevance
- Discovery of Na and Halpha features in the spectrum of KELT-20b with TNG
- Publication of the Handbook of Exoplanets, the most extensive work of reference in the field of exoplanets. The Handbook was edited by members of our group, and includes contributions by about 300 experts worldwide, including 12 members of IAC.
Scientific activity
Related publications
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Ground-based search for lightning in Jupiter with GTC/OSIRIS fast photometry and tunable filtersContext. Lightning flashes in Jupiter have been observed by spacecraft orbiting the planet, but so far, they have escaped optical detection from Earth. However, theoretical estimations suggest that these flashes may be detectable by a large telescope if they can be distinguished from the much more intense background of reflected sunlight from theLuque, A. et al.
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52015 -
Discovery of a Young Planetary Mass Companion to the Nearby M Dwarf VHS J125601.92-125723.9In a search for common proper motion companions using the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) and the 2MASS catalogs we have identified a very red (J-{{K}s}=2.47 mag) late-L dwarf companion of a previously unrecognized M dwarf VHS J125601.92-125723.9 (hereafter VHS 1256-1257), located at a projected angular separation of 8.″ 06 ± 0.″ 03. In this work weGauza, B. et al.
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52015 -
Transits and starspots in the WASP-6 planetary systemWe present updates to PRISM, a photometric transit-starspot model, and GEMC, a hybrid optimization code combining MCMC and a genetic algorithm. We then present high-precision photometry of four transits in the WASP-6 planetary system, two of which contain a starspot anomaly. All four transits were modelled using PRISM and GEMC, and the physicalTregloan-Reed, J. et al.
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62015 -
Discovery of Two New Thermally Bloated Low-Mass White Dwarfs Among the Kepler BinariesWe report the discovery of two new low-mass, thermally bloated, hot white dwarfs among the Kepler sample of eclipsing binaries. These are KIC 9164561 and KIC 10727668 with orbital periods of 1.2670 and 2.3058 days, respectively. The current primary in both systems is an A star of about 2 {{M}ȯ }. This brings the number of similar binaries among theRappaport, S. et al.
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42015 -
Liverpool telescope 2: a new robotic facility for rapid transient follow-upThe Liverpool Telescope is one of the world's premier facilities for time domain astronomy. The time domain landscape is set to radically change in the coming decade, with synoptic all-sky surveys such as LSST providing huge numbers of transient detections on a nightly basis; transient detections across the electromagnetic spectrum from other majorCopperwheat, C. M. et al.
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32015 -
Three Red Giants With Substellar-Mass CompanionsWe present three giant stars from the ongoing Penn State–Toruń Planet Search with the Hobby–Eberly Telescope, which exhibit radial velocity (RV) variations that point to the presence of planetary-mass companions around them. BD+49 828 is a M=1.52+/- 0.22 {{M}ȯ } K0 giant with a m sin i=1.6-0.2+0.4 {{M}J} minimum mass companion in a = 4.2+0.32‑0.2Niedzielski, A. et al.
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42015 -
Kepler-423b: a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting a very old solar-like starWe report the spectroscopic confirmation of the Kepler object of interest KOI-183.01 (Kepler-423b), a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting an old solar-like star every 2.7 days. Our analysis is the first to combine the full Kepler photometry (quarters 1-17) with high-precision radial velocity measurements taken with the FIES spectrograph at theGandolfi, D. et al.
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42015 -
High-resolution transmission spectrum of the Earth's atmosphere-seeing Earth as an exoplanet using a lunar eclipseWith the rapid developments in the exoplanet field, more and more terrestrial exoplanets are being detected. Characterizing their atmospheres using transit observations will become a key datum in the quest for detecting an Earth-like exoplanet. The atmospheric transmission spectrum of our Earth will be an ideal template for comparison with futureYan, F. et al.
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42015 -
Jupiter as an Exoplanet: UV to NIR Transmission Spectrum Reveals Hazes, a Na Layer, and Possibly Stratospheric H2O-ice CloudsCurrently, the analysis of transmission spectra is the most successful technique to probe the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. However, the accuracy of these measurements is constrained by observational limitations and the diversity of possible atmospheric compositions. Here, we show the UV–VIS–IR transmission spectrum of Jupiter asMontañés-Rodríguez, P. et al.
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32015 -
The centre-to-limb variations of solar Fraunhofer lines imprinted upon lunar eclipse spectra. Implications for exoplanet transit observationsThe atmospheres of exoplanets are commonly studied by observing the transit of the planet passing in front of its parent star. The obscuration of part of the stellar disk during a transit will reveal aspects of its surface structure resulting from general centre-to-limb variations (CLVs). These become apparent when forming the ratio between theYan, F. et al.
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22015 -
Characterization of the known T-type dwarfs towards the σ Orionis clusterAims: The detailed study of T-type candidate members of the young σ Orionis cluster (~3 Myr, ~352 pc, solar metallicity) is fundamental to properly assess the objects' cluster membership and their contribution to the definition of the substellar mass function. Methods: A total of three T-type candidates (S Ori 70, S Ori 73, and S Ori J053804.65Peña Ramírez, K. et al.
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22015 -
The HU Aqr planetary system hypothesis revisitedWe study the mid-egress eclipse timing data gathered for the cataclysmic binary HU Aquarii during the years 1993-2014. The (O-C) residuals were previously attributed to a single ˜7 Jupiter mass companion in ˜5 au orbit or to a stable two-planet system with an unconstrained outermost orbit. We present 22 new observations gathered between 2011 JuneKubicki, D. et al.
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42015 -
On the GJ 436 Planetary SystemThe GJ 436 system contains a transiting planet GJ 436 b which is a hot analogue of Neptune on an eccentric orbit. Recently, two additional transiting sub-Earth planets have been postulated in the literature. We observed three transits of GJ 436 b over the course of three years using two-meter class telescopes, each with a photometric precisionMaciejewski, G. et al.
Advertised on:
122014 -
Kepler-432 b: a massive warm Jupiter in a 52-day eccentric orbit transiting a giant starWe study the Kepler object Kepler-432, an evolved star ascending the red giant branch. By deriving precise radial velocities from multi-epoch high-resolution spectra of Kepler-432 taken with the CAFE spectrograph at the 2.2 m telescope of Calar Alto Observatory and the FIES spectrograph at the Nordic Optical Telescope of Roque de Los MuchachosOrtiz, M. et al.
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12015 -
Tracking Advanced Planetary Systems (TAPAS) with HARPS-N . I. A multiple planetary system around the red giant star TYC 1422-614-1Context. Stars that have evolved off the main sequence are crucial for expanding the frontiers of knowledge on exoplanets toward higher stellar masses and for constraining star-planet interaction mechanisms. These stars have an intrinsic activity, however, which complicates the interpretation of precise radial velocity (RV) measurements, andNiedzielski, A. et al.
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12015 -
Very low-luminosity Class I/flat outflow sources in σ OrionisWe present an optical to submillimetre multiwavelength study of two very low-luminosity Class I/flat systems, Mayrit 1701117 and Mayrit 1082188, in the σ Orionis cluster. We performed moderate-resolution (R ˜ 1000) optical (˜0.4-0.9 μm) spectroscopy with the Cassegrain Twin Spectrograph (TWIN) spectrograph at the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope. TheRiaz, B. et al.
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12015 -
The PLATO 1.0 missionPLATO 2.0 has recently been selected for ESA's M3 launch opportunity (2022/24). Providing accurate key planet parameters (radius, mass, density and age) in statistical numbers, it addresses fundamental questions such as: How do planetary systems form and evolve? Are there other systems with planets like ours, including potentially habitable planetsRauer, H. et al.
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112014 -
The EBLM project. II. A very hot, low-mass M dwarf in an eccentric and long-period, eclipsing binary system from the SuperWASP SurveyIn this paper, we derive the fundamental properties of 1SWASPJ011351.29+314909.7 (J0113+31), a metal-poor (-0.40 ± 0.04 dex), eclipsing binary in an eccentric orbit (~0.3) with an orbital period of ~14.277 d. Eclipsing M dwarfs that orbit solar-type stars (EBLMs), like J0113+31, have been identified from their light curves and follow-upGómez Maqueo Chew, Y. et al.
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122014 -
Spectroscopic follow-up of L- and T-type proper-motion member candidates in the PleiadesWe report on the near-infrared (JHK-bands) low-resolution spectroscopy and red optical (Z-band) photometry of seven proper-motion, very low-mass substellar member candidates of the Pleiades cluster with magnitudes in the interval J = 17.5-20.8 and K = 16.1-18.5 mag. Spectra were acquired for six objects with the LIRIS and NIRSPEC instrumentsZapatero Osorio, M. R. et al.
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122014 -
Saharan mineral dust outbreaks observed over the North Atlantic island of La Palma in summertime between 1984 and 2012We estimate the frequency of Saharan mineral dust outbreak events observed over the North Atlantic island of La Palma based on in situ nightly atmospheric extinction measurements recorded almost continuously since 1984 by the Carlsberg Meridian Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory. The outbreak frequency shows a well-defined seasonalLaken, B. A. et al.
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42014
