Related papers: A College-Level Inquiry-Based Laboratory Activity …
We describe a three hour inquiry activity involving converging lenses and telescopes as part of a semester-long astronomy lab course for non-science majors at Hartnell Community College in Salinas, CA. Students were shown several short…
We describe a new inquiry design aimed at teaching advanced high-school to senior college students the basics of stellar populations. The inquiry is designed to have students come up with their own version of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram…
This paper describes a simple activity for plotting and characterizing the light curve from an exoplanet transit event by way of differential photometry analysis. Using free digital imaging software, participants analyse a series of…
Research-based active learning approaches are critical for the teaching and learning of undergraduate STEM majors. Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are becoming more commonplace in traditional, in-person academic…
We occasionally include projects in our learner-centered introductory astronomy college course to enable non-science major students explore some astronomical concepts in more detail than otherwise. Such projects also highlight ongoing or…
Searching for transits provides a very promising technique for finding close-in extra-solar planets. Transiting planets present the advantage of allowing one to determine physical properties such as mass and radius unambiguously. The…
The disciplines of asteroseismology and extrasolar planet science overlap methodically in the branch of high-precision photometric time series observations. Light curves are, amongst others, useful to measure intrinsic stellar variability…
Research in extrasolar-planet science is data-driven. With the advent of radial-velocity instruments like HARPS and HARPS-N, and transit space missions like Kepler, our ability to discover and characterise extrasolar planets is no longer…
Previous studies conclusively show that pencil-and-paper lecture-tutorials (LTs) are incredibly effective at increasing student engagement and learning gains on a variety of topics when compared to traditional lecture. LTs in astronomy are…
(Abridged) We discuss the design considerations of the EXPLORE (EXtra-solar PLanet Occultation REsearch) project, a series of transiting planet searches using 4-m-class telescopes to continuously monitor a single field of stars in the…
Laboratory studies for planetary science and astrobiology aimat advancing our understanding of the Solar System through the promotion of theoretical and experimental research into the underlying processes that shape it. Laboratory studies…
Through the international collaborators, we recently established a network of existing and working meter-class telescopes to look for planetary transit events. As a first step, we focus on the TrES3 system, and conclude that there could be…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
The EXPLORE Project is a series of searches for transiting extrasolar planets using large-format mosaic CCD cameras on 4-m class telescopes. Radial velocity follow-up is done on transiting planet candidates with 8--10m class telescopes. We…
The field of extrasolar planets is still, in comparison with other astrophysical topics, in its infancy. There have been about 300 or so extrasolar planets detected and their detection has been accomplished by various different techniques.…
Transiting planet systems offer an unique opportunity to observationally constrain proposed models of the interiors (radius, composition) and atmospheres (chemistry, dynamics) of extrasolar planets. The spectacular successes of ground-based…
The study of transiting extrasolar planets is only 15 years old, but has matured into a rich area of research. I review the observational aspects of this work, concentrating on the discovery of transits, the characterisation of planets from…
This tutorial is an introduction to techniques used to characterize the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. We intend it to be a useful guide for the undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral scholar who wants to begin research in…
Experience in exploring our own solar system has shown that direct investigation of planetary bodies using space probes invariably yields scientific knowledge not otherwise obtainable. In the case of exoplanets, such direct investigation…
The detection and study of extrasolar planets is an exciting and thriving field in modern astrophysics, and an increasingly popular topic in introductory astronomy courses. One detection method relies on searching for stars whose light has…