transmission spectroscopy Archives

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 by Matt Williams

Could the ESA’s PLATO Mission Find Earth 2.0?

Artist's impression of the ESA's PLATO mission. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Currently, 5,788 exoplanets have been confirmed in 4,326 star systems, while thousands more candidates await confirmation. So far, the vast majority of these planets have been gas giants (3,826) or Super-Earths (1,735), while only 210 have been “Earth-like” – meaning rocky planets similar in size and mass to Earth. What’s more, the majority of these planets have been discovered orbiting within M-type (red dwarf) star systems, while only a few have been found orbiting Sun-like stars. Nevertheless, no Earth-like planets orbiting within a Sun-like star’s habitable zone (HZ) have been discovered so far.

This is largely due to the limitations of existing observatories, which have been unable to resolve Earth-sized planets with longer orbital periods (200 to 500 days). This is where next-generation instruments like the ESA’s PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) mission come into play. This mission, scheduled to launch in 2026, will spend four years surveying up to one million stars for signs of planetary transits caused by rocky exoplanets. In a recent study, an international team of scientists considered what PLATO would likely see based on what it would see if observing the Solar System itself.

August 5, 2024August 5, 2024 by Evan Gough

Fast-Tracking the Search for Habitable Worlds

Astronomers have detected thousands of planets, including dozens that are potentially habitable. To winnow them down, they need to understand their atmospheres and other factors. (NASA Illustration)

Modern astronomy would struggle without AI and machine learning (ML), which have become indispensable tools. They alone have the capability to manage and work with the vast amounts of data that modern telescopes generate. ML can sift through large datasets, seeking specified patterns that would take humans far longer to find.

The search for biosignatures on Earth-like exoplanets is a critical part of contemporary astronomy, and ML can play a big role in it.

March 22, 2024March 22, 2024 by Evan Gough

Finding Atmospheres on Red Dwarf Planets Will Take Hundreds of Hours of Webb Time

This illustration shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope examined the exoplanet and revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules. The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b. But more extensive observations with the JWST are needed to understand its atmosphere with greater confidence. Image Credit: By Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)Science: Nikku Madhusudhan (IoA)

The JWST is enormously powerful. One of the reasons it was launched is to examine exoplanet atmospheres to determine their chemistry, something only a powerful telescope can do. But even the JWST needs time to wield that power effectively, especially when it comes to one of exoplanet science’s most important targets: rocky worlds orbiting red dwarfs.