Related papers: A College-Level Inquiry-Based Laboratory Activity …
The search for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the Solar System is one of the most compelling scientific opportunities of our time. Nevertheless, the high cost of building facilities that can address this topic and the keen public…
It has been previously shown that moons of extrasolar planets may be detectable with the Kepler Mission, for moon masses above ~0.2 Earth masses Kipping et al. 2009c. Transit timing effects have been formerly identified as a potent tool to…
While it may seem counterintuitive that X-ray astronomy should give any insights into low-temperature planetary systems, planets orbit stars whose magnetized surfaces divert a small fraction of the stellar energy into high energy products:…
The last decade has witnessed a rapid growth of the field of exoplanet discovery and characterisation. However, several big challenges remain, many of which could be addressed using machine learning methodology. For instance, the most…
We present a solution for the light curve of two bodies mutually transiting a star with polynomial limb darkening. The term "mutual transit" in this work refers to a transit of the star during which overlap occurs between the two transiting…
We present design considerations for a ground-based survey for transiting exoplanets around L and T dwarfs, spectral classes that have yet to be thoroughly probed for planets. We simulate photometry for L and T targets with a variety of…
Recent investigations have demonstrated the potential for utilizing a new observational and data analysis technique for studying the atmospheres of non-transiting exoplanets with combined light that relies on acquiring simultaneous,…
We redesigned an advanced physics laboratory course to include a project component. The intention was to address learning outcomes such as modeling, design of experiments, teamwork, and developing technical skills in using apparatus and…
Cultural Astronomy sits at the intersection of our study of the universe and the human experience, exploring how we observe the stars, interpret their motions, and incorporate them into our perspectives of the nature of reality. "Astronomy…
We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in exoplanet observations that will revolutionize our ability to characterize their atmospheric structure, composition, and circulation, from gas giants to rocky planets. However, exoplanet…
The transit method, during which a planet's presence is inferred by measuring the reduction in flux as it passes in front of its parent star, is a highly successful exoplanet detection and characterization technique. During transit, the…
I derive the physical properties of 30 transiting extrasolar planetary systems using a homogeneous analysis of published data. The light curves are modelled with the JKTEBOP code, with attention paid to limb darkening and eccentricity. The…
We describe a project (transitsearch.org) currently attempting to discover transiting intermediate-period planets orbiting bright parent stars, and we simulate that project's performance. The discovery of such a transit would be an…
I describe ongoing work on development of Bayesian methods for exploring periodically varying phenomena in astronomy, addressing two classes of sources: pulsars, and extrasolar planets (exoplanets). For pulsars, the methods aim to detect…
The Kepler Mission, launched on Mar 6, 2009 was designed with the explicit capability to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars using the transit photometry method. Results from just forty-three days of data…
We report follow-up observations of transiting exoplanets that have either large uncertainties (>10 minutes) in their transit times or have not been observed for over three years. A fully robotic ground-based telescope network, observations…
Many institutions are changing the focus of their introductory physics labs from verifying physics content towards teaching students about the skills and nature of science. As instruction shifts, so too will the ways students approach and…
The first transiting extrasolar planet, orbiting HD209458, was a Doppler wobble planet before its transits were discovered with a 10 cm CCD camera. Wide-angle CCD cameras, by monitoring in parallel the light curves of tens of thousands of…
We use the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long (STPFaSL-Long), a research-based survey instrument with 78 items at the level of introductory physics, to investigate introductory and advanced students'…
We discuss an inquiry-based curriculum that has been developed specifically for the introductory algebra-based physics course, taking into account the needs, backgrounds, learning styles and career goals of the students in that class. The…