Event Details - Identifying Extrasolar Planets

"Identifying Extrasolar Planets with the KELT and TESS Missions," Physics Seminar presented by Dr. Denise Stephens, Associate Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University.

Abstract:  For the past five years, BYU has been involved in the ground-based follow-up of possible extrasolar planets identified by the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) Survey.  When the KELT team identifies a star as being a possible host for an extrasolar planet, data is sent to the ground-based follow-up team to confirm and characterize the transit event.  Using our 16-inch telescope in Provo, Utah and our 0.9-meter telescope at West Mountain,we have helped to discover and confirm a couple extrasolar planets and a very large number of eclipsing binary star systems.  With the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), these same ground-based follow-up techniques are required to confirm a transit event is due to a planet.  But unlike KELT, the TESS survey is sensitive to Earth-sized planets.

In this talk, I will discuss how the TESS and KELT surveys identify stars with transiting planets and BYU's role in following up these detections.  Most of our work is carried out by robotic telescopes and undergraduate students, and it provides a great opportunity to educate and train students in how to collect and reduce astronomical data.  I will highlight a few of the KELT discoveries that we have contributed to as well as highlight what we hope to accomplish with the TESS survey and the new telescope systems we are currently installing to continue this research. 

Photo courtesy of Dr. Denise Stephens