MIT scientists develop method of detecting the presence of clouds on exoplanets

MIT researchers have developed a method of analyzing data from NASA’s Keplar space observatory, that allows for the detection of clouds present in the atmosphere of distant exoplanets. Whilst such work may seem like blue sky science, the research has potentially profound implications for determining the habitability of distant worlds.

A well-established method of detecting exoplanets is to use telescopes such as Hubble and Kepler, in order to detect the tell-tale dip of light which informs astronomers that a planetary body is transiting across the disk of its parent star.

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I tend to be cynical of work on kepler data because I’ve done my own work on Kepler data, but this may work. Except that I didn’t know that Kepler took spectra, I thought it was monochrome, spectral data is needed for this sort of analysis.

The most interesting part of the article to me is the final paragraph:
“Looking to the future, the team hopes to apply the method to Kepler’s follow-up mission, K2, which will focus on a different region of the night sky and on data returned by MIT’s own Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.”

On the topic of K2, I thought Kepler had been shut down. It hasn’t, the first set of observations is finished, but more are now being taken, and proposals are requested for two further observation campaigns K3 and K4. One problem is the loss of gyroscopes (a perennial spacecraft problem), Kepler is now down to two.

“On Aug. 23 2014, the Kepler mission began its second campaign. The Campaign 2 field of view includes the globular star clusters M4 and M80 in the constellation of Scorpius, the very dense star-forming region Rho Ophiuchi, along with 17,000 target stars that can be searched for exoplanets.”

About the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), it’s going to be an all-sky mission.
“TESS will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. In a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS will monitor more than 500,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances”

Links:
http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Kepler K2

mollwollfumble said:

I tend to be cynical of work on kepler data because I’ve done my own work on Kepler data, but this may work. Except that I didn’t know that Kepler took spectra, I thought it was monochrome, spectral data is needed for this sort of analysis.

The most interesting part of the article to me is the final paragraph:
“Looking to the future, the team hopes to apply the method to Kepler’s follow-up mission, K2, which will focus on a different region of the night sky and on data returned by MIT’s own Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.”

On the topic of K2, I thought Kepler had been shut down. It hasn’t, the first set of observations is finished, but more are now being taken, and proposals are requested for two further observation campaigns K3 and K4. One problem is the loss of gyroscopes (a perennial spacecraft problem), Kepler is now down to two.

“On Aug. 23 2014, the Kepler mission began its second campaign. The Campaign 2 field of view includes the globular star clusters M4 and M80 in the constellation of Scorpius, the very dense star-forming region Rho Ophiuchi, along with 17,000 target stars that can be searched for exoplanets.”

About the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), it’s going to be an all-sky mission.
“TESS will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. In a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS will monitor more than 500,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances”

Links:
http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Kepler K2

http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/documents/TESS_FactSheet_Oct2014.pdf

More on TESS. Launch scheduled for 2017:

TESS will tile the sky with 26 observation sectors: • At least 27 days staring at each 24° x 96° sector
TESS’s survey will focus on G- and K-type stars with apparent magnitudes brighter than magnitude 12. Approximately 500,000 stars will be studied, including the 1,000 closest red dwarfs, across an area of sky 400 times larger than that covered by Kepler.
FOUR WIDE FIELD-OF-VIEW CCD CAMERAS. Each of the four cameras has: • 24° x 24° Field-of-View • 100 mm effective pupil diameter • Lens assembly with 7 optical elements
Unique High Earth Orbit (HEO), Stable 2:1 resonance with Moon’s orbit. Orbit highly elliptical, with an eccentricity of 0.55, distance from Earth ranging from 108,000 to 373,000 km.
Launch using a Falcon 9 rocket

Note that a 24° x 24° Field-of-View is incredibly large for a telescope of any kind. Kepler already has one of the largest if not THE largest field of view of any astronomical camera at with a diameter of 12°.