Projects
New Ways to Observe Exoplanets
PI: Nick Konidaris (Observatories, Carnegie Science)
SASE: Dave Rumph, Senior Engineer
The study of exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system) is one of the forefront fields of astrophysics. There are many reasons that motivate the study of exoplanets; simply understanding how planets form is a question of long-standing interest. The goal of the Henrietta Project is to develop the software and hardware required to routinely measure the spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres from the ground at infrared wavelengths. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, but it is where molecular transitions are common. Spectroscopic measurements of exo-atmospheres are extremely challenging and require substantial research on methods and software implementation. Measurements exploit exoplanet transits – when the planet passes in front of a host star. During a transit, the atmosphere is back-illuminated by the host star when a small amount of light is absorbed by the atmosphere. The concept is illustrated below.
The central new technology is the Henrietta Spectrograph, currently under construction, for installation on the Swope Telescope in Chile. Starting in the summer of 2023, the Carnegie team will begin observing with the Henrietta Spectrograph.
The Schmidt Academy is collaborating with the Carnegie Observatories on software to convert raw data to science-ready results through a “data reduction pipeline”. The software will allow the astronomers to quickly run the pipeline, while keeping track of the reduction metadata. The astronomers plan to observe over hundreds of nights per year and so there will be an enormous amount of data collected, necessitating an efficient, easy to use data reduction pipeline software.