Astronomy at St Andrews 2018-2021
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The St Andrews astronomy group is interested in questions of origins: where do galaxies, stars and planets come from, and what fundamental physics explains their formation? How widespread is life and how did it arise on Earth and on other worlds? We are world leaders in solving intricate mathematical problems, and we use novel methods such as observations at very high precision and simulations with super computers. We are joined by other groups across Scotland via the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), and internationally, in searching for hot and cool Earth-sized planets, homing in on habitable worlds where life could exist, and developing ways to detect life on those distant worlds.
Our investigations span a wide range of size scales, from discovering planetary systems around stars a few light years away to measuring the force of gravity acting on the whole universe. We discover `hot Jupiters' by using robotic wide-angle cameras that monitor thousands of stars to find those that briefly dim each time an orbiting planet passes in front of its parent star. We measure the masses of these planets using high-precision spectrographs to measure how much the orbiting planet wobbles its host star. We discover cooler and smaller more Earth-like planets by using a global network of robotic telescopes to watch gravitational lenses, exploiting Einstein's prediction that a planet drifting across the sightline to a distant background star bends its light. We learn about how planets form by studying the light from the gas and dust grains that accumulate to form planets, comparing with our computer simulations to understand the chemistry may lead to formation of biological molecules.
Young stars have strong magnetic fields that interact with orbiting planets and their own magnetic fields. We study the signatures of this interaction to understand how planets form and evolve. We investigate the physics of mineral clouds and lightning in atmospheres of cool brown dwarf stars and extrasolar planets, processes that may play a role in the origin of life. We compare observations and computer simulations to study how stars form in galaxies and how feedback from young stars drives a dynamic, bubbling interstellar medium, the dusty gas from which new stars are born. We include energetic supernova explosions when massive stars die and the ionising radiation from massive stars that heats the gas in the galaxy to temperatures above than 10,000 degrees Centigrade.
On cosmological scales, we measure how gas and stars move within galaxies to study how galaxies form their characteristic shapes of flat discs, spiral arms and central bulges, and how these change as galaxies collide and merge to grow larger elliptical galaxies. We study the supermassive black holes that lurk in galaxy cores, to understand how they form and grow, and how their huge output of energy and radiation affects the host galaxy evolution. We study how gravity works both within galaxies and across the wider universe. Stars orbit in galaxies so fast that there appears to be too little mass to hold galaxies together, and our expanding universe appears to be accelerating. We understand gravity well enough to send space probes to other planets, but to understand these larger scale puzzles we investigate alternatives to current ideas of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, comparing our predictions with observations to test how gravity works.
Thus we address all four of the STFC Science Roadmap Challenges: How did the Universe begin and how is it evolving? How do stars and planetary systems develop and is life unique to our planet? What are the fundamental constituents and fabric of the universe and how do they interact? How can we explore and understand the extremes of the universe? What are the laws of physics in extreme conditions? How do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve? Are we alone in the Universe?
Our investigations span a wide range of size scales, from discovering planetary systems around stars a few light years away to measuring the force of gravity acting on the whole universe. We discover `hot Jupiters' by using robotic wide-angle cameras that monitor thousands of stars to find those that briefly dim each time an orbiting planet passes in front of its parent star. We measure the masses of these planets using high-precision spectrographs to measure how much the orbiting planet wobbles its host star. We discover cooler and smaller more Earth-like planets by using a global network of robotic telescopes to watch gravitational lenses, exploiting Einstein's prediction that a planet drifting across the sightline to a distant background star bends its light. We learn about how planets form by studying the light from the gas and dust grains that accumulate to form planets, comparing with our computer simulations to understand the chemistry may lead to formation of biological molecules.
Young stars have strong magnetic fields that interact with orbiting planets and their own magnetic fields. We study the signatures of this interaction to understand how planets form and evolve. We investigate the physics of mineral clouds and lightning in atmospheres of cool brown dwarf stars and extrasolar planets, processes that may play a role in the origin of life. We compare observations and computer simulations to study how stars form in galaxies and how feedback from young stars drives a dynamic, bubbling interstellar medium, the dusty gas from which new stars are born. We include energetic supernova explosions when massive stars die and the ionising radiation from massive stars that heats the gas in the galaxy to temperatures above than 10,000 degrees Centigrade.
On cosmological scales, we measure how gas and stars move within galaxies to study how galaxies form their characteristic shapes of flat discs, spiral arms and central bulges, and how these change as galaxies collide and merge to grow larger elliptical galaxies. We study the supermassive black holes that lurk in galaxy cores, to understand how they form and grow, and how their huge output of energy and radiation affects the host galaxy evolution. We study how gravity works both within galaxies and across the wider universe. Stars orbit in galaxies so fast that there appears to be too little mass to hold galaxies together, and our expanding universe appears to be accelerating. We understand gravity well enough to send space probes to other planets, but to understand these larger scale puzzles we investigate alternatives to current ideas of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, comparing our predictions with observations to test how gravity works.
Thus we address all four of the STFC Science Roadmap Challenges: How did the Universe begin and how is it evolving? How do stars and planetary systems develop and is life unique to our planet? What are the fundamental constituents and fabric of the universe and how do they interact? How can we explore and understand the extremes of the universe? What are the laws of physics in extreme conditions? How do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve? Are we alone in the Universe?
Planned Impact
Our research creates three major kinds of impact, related to
(1) the insatiable public interest in the fundamental questions behind our existence that are being addressed,
(2) the practical implications for understanding atmospheric processes,
(3) the universality of techniques pioneered by our cutting-edge scientific endeavour.
Moreover, our facilities are of use beyond astronomy.
The widespread public fascination about objects in the sky is rooted in astronomy providing context to life on Earth. Our research on extra-solar planets, astrobiology, formation processes, and large-scale forces provides answers that cannot be found on our home planet. We thereby directly affect the culture of our society, using the media, museums, or other outreach organisations as intermediaries to stipulate members of various age groups to wonder, explore and investigate. Moreover, beyond any other scientific discipline, we inspire young people and motivate more of them to pursue careers in STEM subjects, leading to them acquiring skills that are essential for safeguarding the economic competitiveness of the UK.
Our research work and its consequences are widely and frequently presented in the national and world-wide media, both as news reports and features in major newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV stations, with several of our PIs having gained a substantial reputation. Members of our group have also published popular science books. We moreover address the public through exhibits, documentary films, and music pieces, having partnered with science centres, museums, arts galleries, and orchestras, as well as artists, musicians, and film directors.
Following the goals to connect people with our research, create opportunities for citizen engagement in science, and making the process of science transparent, our project `Transparent Observatory' saw the University Observatory opening up to the public and involving a permanent exhibition, Scotland-wide advertising, as well as live observations of transiting exoplanets and young stars, leading to a social media presence with a network of almost 1000 contacts.
In collaboration with Qatar Foundation, we will not only contribute to the development of astronomy in the Gulf region, but create a global cultural experience for school classes from different countries.
We have been active in establishing networks involving other academic areas, the health sector, commercial companies, and government agencies.
The study of dust and cloud formation processes in stellar and planetary atmospheres is related to applications of substantial commercial value as well as safety. This includes dust removal from plasma-processing devices, fusion reactor safety, the safety of airports near volcanoes, as well as dust charging on Mars as a hazard for future explorations.
We established a cooperation with Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on photodynamic therapy for the treatment of skin cancer, using simulations of light propagation through human tissue and fluorescence based on radiation transfer codes.
Our dynamic real-time scheduling of robotic telescopes acts as a technology driver at the intersection of constraint programming and cloud computing, which are enabling technologies widely applicable in many disciplines in industry and academia such as industrial design, aviation, banking, combinatorial mathematics, as well as the petrochemical and steel industries.
Our local 0.94m James Gregory Telescope, the largest operating optical telescope in the UK, is used to discover space debris in geosynchronous and Molniya orbits, in collaboration with SpaceInsight, a company providing observations and tracking of man-made near-Earth objects, and supported by the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Defense Science & Technology Laboratory.
(1) the insatiable public interest in the fundamental questions behind our existence that are being addressed,
(2) the practical implications for understanding atmospheric processes,
(3) the universality of techniques pioneered by our cutting-edge scientific endeavour.
Moreover, our facilities are of use beyond astronomy.
The widespread public fascination about objects in the sky is rooted in astronomy providing context to life on Earth. Our research on extra-solar planets, astrobiology, formation processes, and large-scale forces provides answers that cannot be found on our home planet. We thereby directly affect the culture of our society, using the media, museums, or other outreach organisations as intermediaries to stipulate members of various age groups to wonder, explore and investigate. Moreover, beyond any other scientific discipline, we inspire young people and motivate more of them to pursue careers in STEM subjects, leading to them acquiring skills that are essential for safeguarding the economic competitiveness of the UK.
Our research work and its consequences are widely and frequently presented in the national and world-wide media, both as news reports and features in major newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV stations, with several of our PIs having gained a substantial reputation. Members of our group have also published popular science books. We moreover address the public through exhibits, documentary films, and music pieces, having partnered with science centres, museums, arts galleries, and orchestras, as well as artists, musicians, and film directors.
Following the goals to connect people with our research, create opportunities for citizen engagement in science, and making the process of science transparent, our project `Transparent Observatory' saw the University Observatory opening up to the public and involving a permanent exhibition, Scotland-wide advertising, as well as live observations of transiting exoplanets and young stars, leading to a social media presence with a network of almost 1000 contacts.
In collaboration with Qatar Foundation, we will not only contribute to the development of astronomy in the Gulf region, but create a global cultural experience for school classes from different countries.
We have been active in establishing networks involving other academic areas, the health sector, commercial companies, and government agencies.
The study of dust and cloud formation processes in stellar and planetary atmospheres is related to applications of substantial commercial value as well as safety. This includes dust removal from plasma-processing devices, fusion reactor safety, the safety of airports near volcanoes, as well as dust charging on Mars as a hazard for future explorations.
We established a cooperation with Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on photodynamic therapy for the treatment of skin cancer, using simulations of light propagation through human tissue and fluorescence based on radiation transfer codes.
Our dynamic real-time scheduling of robotic telescopes acts as a technology driver at the intersection of constraint programming and cloud computing, which are enabling technologies widely applicable in many disciplines in industry and academia such as industrial design, aviation, banking, combinatorial mathematics, as well as the petrochemical and steel industries.
Our local 0.94m James Gregory Telescope, the largest operating optical telescope in the UK, is used to discover space debris in geosynchronous and Molniya orbits, in collaboration with SpaceInsight, a company providing observations and tracking of man-made near-Earth objects, and supported by the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Defense Science & Technology Laboratory.
Organisations
- University of St Andrews (Lead Research Organisation)
- HARVARD UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER (Collaboration)
- National Institute for Astrophysics (Collaboration)
- KEELE UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- Las Cumbres Observatory (Collaboration)
- QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (Collaboration)
- University of Geneva (Collaboration)
- University of Bern (Collaboration)
- The Open University (Collaboration)
- American River College (Collaboration)
- European Space Agency (Collaboration)
Publications
Anna John A
(2023)
Sub-m s-1 upper limits from a deep HARPS-N radial-velocity search for planets orbiting HD 166620 and HD 144579
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Anna John A
(2022)
The impact of two non-transiting planets and stellar activity on mass determinations for the super-Earth CoRoT-7b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bachelet E
(2022)
MOA-2019-BLG-008Lb: A New Microlensing Detection of an Object at the Planet/Brown Dwarf Boundary
in The Astronomical Journal
Bachelet E
(2018)
First Assessment of the Binary Lens OGLE-2015-BLG-0232
in The Astrophysical Journal
Barth P
(2021)
MOVES - IV. Modelling the influence of stellar XUV-flux, cosmic rays, and stellar energetic particles on the atmospheric composition of the hot Jupiter HD 189733b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Biddle L
(2020)
Amplitude Modulation of Short-Timescale Hot Spot Variability
Biddle L
(2021)
Amplitude Modulation of Short-timescale Hot Spot Variability
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bluhm P
(2021)
An ultra-short-period transiting super-Earth orbiting the M3 dwarf TOI-1685
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Title | SCALPELS |
Description | This is a software technique for disentangling the effects of stellar activity from planetary reflex motion, to enhance the detectability and reliability of mass measurements for low-mass planets in the size range that will be prioritized for PLATO RV followup. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | 20 citations since publication in 08/2021. |
URL | https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/505/2/1699/6274698?login=false |
Title | Data underpinning - Prominence formation and ejection in Cool Stars |
Description | Files with extension. dat given the values of the corotation radius and alfven radius used to plot Fig 1 in the paper. Also, code written in python used to calculate the values given in Table 2 of the same work |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Title | Data underpinning - Slingshot prominences: nature's wind gauges |
Description | Data files used for plots in the paper: Wood_data.csv was used for Fig. 7, fort.2 for figure 2 and stars.csv for figs 3,4,5 |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Title | Hierarchical Bayesian calibration of tidal orbit decay rates among hot Jupiters (dataset) |
Description | Underpinning data for MNRAS paper of the same title. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Title | Observing Substructure In Circumstellar Discs Around Massive Young Stellar Objects |
Description | Synthetic dust continuum and molecular line Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) observations of massive, self-gravitating disc models surrounding massive young stellar objects are presented here. Semi-analytic models of self-gravitating discs with spiral density waves and clumps/fragments are combined with radiative transfer models, and synthetic observations are produced using CASA software. Models presented here have different disc masses, distances, inclinations, thermal structures, dust distributions, number and orientation of spirals and fragments.
Data is in the FITS format, with filenames starting either with 'line' (synthetic molecular line datacube) or 'cont' (synthetic continuum images), and each filename contains the model ID. Tables of model IDs and model parameters are given in files models_table_spiral.dat and models_table_spiral_fragments.dat for models without and with fragments, respectively. Starting from a fiducial disc model, model parameters were varied one by one, with the exception of disc inclination which is separately set in each model. For details about the model parameters, detailed presentation of methods, proposed substructure-enhancing filtering methods, discussion and predictions for the upcoming ALMA observations, see Jankovic et al. 2018 (accepted for publication in MNRAS, arxiv.org/abs/1810.11398). |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Title | SuperWASP dispositions and false positive catalogue |
Description | SuperWASP, the Northern hemisphere WASP observatory, has been observing the skies from La Palma since 2004. In that time, more than 50 planets have been discovered with data contributions from SuperWASP. In the process of validating planets, many false-positive candidates have also been identified. The TESS telescope is set to begin observations of the northern sky in 2019. Similar to the WASP survey, the TESS pixel size is relatively large (13 arcsec for WASP and 21 arcsec for TESS), making it susceptible to many blended signals and false detections caused principally by grazing and blended stellar eclipsing binary systems. In order to reduce duplication of effort on targets, we present a catalogue of 1 041 Northern hemisphere SuperWASP targets that have been rejected as planetary transits through follow-up observation. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This catalogue has been communicated to the NASA TESS mission follow-up team to assist with northern-hemisphere false-positive vetting. |
URL | http://cdsarc.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/488/4905 |
Description | CHEOPS |
Organisation | European Space Agency |
Country | France |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | A. Cameron is the ESA-appointed UK member of the Science Team. His responsibilities to the mission include membership of the Preliminary Requirements Review Panel, chairing the panel for scientific validation of the Science Operations Centre, and leading Science Team Working Group B2 for mission Data Analysis. |
Collaborator Contribution | All aspects of mission design, spacecraft and instrument fabrication, and mission software. The project is led by the University of Bern. The University of Geneva hosts the Science Operations Centre. |
Impact | CHEOPS - CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite - is the first mission dedicated to searching for exoplanetary transits by performing ultra-high precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. The mission's main science goals are to measure the bulk density of super-Earths and Neptunes orbiting bright stars and provide suitable targets for future in-depth characterisation studies of exoplanets in these mass and size ranges. Launch is scheduled to take place in November 2019. |
Start Year | 2012 |
Description | CHEOPS |
Organisation | University of Bern |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A. Cameron is the ESA-appointed UK member of the Science Team. His responsibilities to the mission include membership of the Preliminary Requirements Review Panel, chairing the panel for scientific validation of the Science Operations Centre, and leading Science Team Working Group B2 for mission Data Analysis. |
Collaborator Contribution | All aspects of mission design, spacecraft and instrument fabrication, and mission software. The project is led by the University of Bern. The University of Geneva hosts the Science Operations Centre. |
Impact | CHEOPS - CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite - is the first mission dedicated to searching for exoplanetary transits by performing ultra-high precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. The mission's main science goals are to measure the bulk density of super-Earths and Neptunes orbiting bright stars and provide suitable targets for future in-depth characterisation studies of exoplanets in these mass and size ranges. Launch is scheduled to take place in November 2019. |
Start Year | 2012 |
Description | CHEOPS |
Organisation | University of Geneva |
Department | Geneva Observatory |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A. Cameron is the ESA-appointed UK member of the Science Team. His responsibilities to the mission include membership of the Preliminary Requirements Review Panel, chairing the panel for scientific validation of the Science Operations Centre, and leading Science Team Working Group B2 for mission Data Analysis. |
Collaborator Contribution | All aspects of mission design, spacecraft and instrument fabrication, and mission software. The project is led by the University of Bern. The University of Geneva hosts the Science Operations Centre. |
Impact | CHEOPS - CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite - is the first mission dedicated to searching for exoplanetary transits by performing ultra-high precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. The mission's main science goals are to measure the bulk density of super-Earths and Neptunes orbiting bright stars and provide suitable targets for future in-depth characterisation studies of exoplanets in these mass and size ranges. Launch is scheduled to take place in November 2019. |
Start Year | 2012 |
Description | HARPS-North |
Organisation | Harvard University |
Department | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | St Andrews, Belfast and Edinburgh paid for and fabricated the front end optics and control systems of HARPS-N. |
Collaborator Contribution | Harvard provided detectors, Geneva led the project and built the spectrograph. In exchange for the instrument, INAF have provided 80N/year of guaranteed observing time on the 3.5-m TNG over 5 years. |
Impact | The HARPS-N spectrograph is a high-precision radial-velocity instrument, similar to HARPS on the 3.6-m ESO telescope in Chile. It will be located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island (Canary Islands) to allow for synergy with the NASA Kepler mission. The main scientific rationale of HARPS-N is the characterization and discovery of terrestrial planets by combining transits and Doppler measurements. To date it has produced 60% of the mass determinations in existence for transiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune planets discovered with the NASA Kepler/K2 mission. Over the next five years (2017-2022) further guaranteed time has been awarded by INAF to characterise planets transiting brighter stars from the NASA TESS mission and the Swiss-led ESA CHEOPS satellite following their respective launches in 2018. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | HARPS-North |
Organisation | National Institute for Astrophysics |
Country | Italy |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | St Andrews, Belfast and Edinburgh paid for and fabricated the front end optics and control systems of HARPS-N. |
Collaborator Contribution | Harvard provided detectors, Geneva led the project and built the spectrograph. In exchange for the instrument, INAF have provided 80N/year of guaranteed observing time on the 3.5-m TNG over 5 years. |
Impact | The HARPS-N spectrograph is a high-precision radial-velocity instrument, similar to HARPS on the 3.6-m ESO telescope in Chile. It will be located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island (Canary Islands) to allow for synergy with the NASA Kepler mission. The main scientific rationale of HARPS-N is the characterization and discovery of terrestrial planets by combining transits and Doppler measurements. To date it has produced 60% of the mass determinations in existence for transiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune planets discovered with the NASA Kepler/K2 mission. Over the next five years (2017-2022) further guaranteed time has been awarded by INAF to characterise planets transiting brighter stars from the NASA TESS mission and the Swiss-led ESA CHEOPS satellite following their respective launches in 2018. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | HARPS-North |
Organisation | Queen's University Belfast |
Department | Astrophysics Research Centre |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | St Andrews, Belfast and Edinburgh paid for and fabricated the front end optics and control systems of HARPS-N. |
Collaborator Contribution | Harvard provided detectors, Geneva led the project and built the spectrograph. In exchange for the instrument, INAF have provided 80N/year of guaranteed observing time on the 3.5-m TNG over 5 years. |
Impact | The HARPS-N spectrograph is a high-precision radial-velocity instrument, similar to HARPS on the 3.6-m ESO telescope in Chile. It will be located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island (Canary Islands) to allow for synergy with the NASA Kepler mission. The main scientific rationale of HARPS-N is the characterization and discovery of terrestrial planets by combining transits and Doppler measurements. To date it has produced 60% of the mass determinations in existence for transiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune planets discovered with the NASA Kepler/K2 mission. Over the next five years (2017-2022) further guaranteed time has been awarded by INAF to characterise planets transiting brighter stars from the NASA TESS mission and the Swiss-led ESA CHEOPS satellite following their respective launches in 2018. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | HARPS-North |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Department | Institute for Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | St Andrews, Belfast and Edinburgh paid for and fabricated the front end optics and control systems of HARPS-N. |
Collaborator Contribution | Harvard provided detectors, Geneva led the project and built the spectrograph. In exchange for the instrument, INAF have provided 80N/year of guaranteed observing time on the 3.5-m TNG over 5 years. |
Impact | The HARPS-N spectrograph is a high-precision radial-velocity instrument, similar to HARPS on the 3.6-m ESO telescope in Chile. It will be located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island (Canary Islands) to allow for synergy with the NASA Kepler mission. The main scientific rationale of HARPS-N is the characterization and discovery of terrestrial planets by combining transits and Doppler measurements. To date it has produced 60% of the mass determinations in existence for transiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune planets discovered with the NASA Kepler/K2 mission. Over the next five years (2017-2022) further guaranteed time has been awarded by INAF to characterise planets transiting brighter stars from the NASA TESS mission and the Swiss-led ESA CHEOPS satellite following their respective launches in 2018. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | HARPS-North |
Organisation | University of Geneva |
Department | Geneva Observatory |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | St Andrews, Belfast and Edinburgh paid for and fabricated the front end optics and control systems of HARPS-N. |
Collaborator Contribution | Harvard provided detectors, Geneva led the project and built the spectrograph. In exchange for the instrument, INAF have provided 80N/year of guaranteed observing time on the 3.5-m TNG over 5 years. |
Impact | The HARPS-N spectrograph is a high-precision radial-velocity instrument, similar to HARPS on the 3.6-m ESO telescope in Chile. It will be located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island (Canary Islands) to allow for synergy with the NASA Kepler mission. The main scientific rationale of HARPS-N is the characterization and discovery of terrestrial planets by combining transits and Doppler measurements. To date it has produced 60% of the mass determinations in existence for transiting super-Earth and mini-Neptune planets discovered with the NASA Kepler/K2 mission. Over the next five years (2017-2022) further guaranteed time has been awarded by INAF to characterise planets transiting brighter stars from the NASA TESS mission and the Swiss-led ESA CHEOPS satellite following their respective launches in 2018. |
Start Year | 2010 |
Description | TECH-LCOGT |
Organisation | Las Cumbres Observatory |
Country | United States |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | Capital costs of construction of three of the 1-m telescopes in the LGOGT network (SUPAScopes) were funded by the University of St Andrews through SUPA-II. St Andrews continues to fund the maintenance and operations costs of these telescopes, through a combination of internal and external funding, and sale of telescope time. Andrew Cameron and Keith Horne are members of the TECH key project team, which characterises selected exoplanets by intensively monitoring the transit events using the LCOGT 1m network of telescopes. One of our focuses is on the rare "warm Jupiter" class of planets, for which the LCOGT global network is in a unique position to characterise due to the longitudal coverage of telescopes. Additionally we search for for undiscovered planets via transit timing variations and monitor selected K2 transiting planets that require photometric observations in order to fully characterise the system. |
Collaborator Contribution | LCOGT built, maintains and operates the telescopes. |
Impact | 6 publications to date with either Cameron or Horne as co-authors. |
Start Year | 2009 |
Description | WASP |
Organisation | American River College |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
Impact | WASP is the most successful of the ground-based searches for transiting exoplanets, having now found nearly 200 planets. The collaboration has produced over 200 refereed publications, and the WASP archive continues to produce new discoveries in the era of NASA's Kepler and TESS missions. |
Description | WASP |
Organisation | Keele University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
Impact | WASP is the most successful of the ground-based searches for transiting exoplanets, having now found nearly 200 planets. The collaboration has produced over 200 refereed publications, and the WASP archive continues to produce new discoveries in the era of NASA's Kepler and TESS missions. |
Description | WASP |
Organisation | Open University |
Department | School of Physical Sciences |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
Impact | WASP is the most successful of the ground-based searches for transiting exoplanets, having now found nearly 200 planets. The collaboration has produced over 200 refereed publications, and the WASP archive continues to produce new discoveries in the era of NASA's Kepler and TESS missions. |
Description | WASP |
Organisation | University of Leicester |
Department | Department of Physics & Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
Impact | WASP is the most successful of the ground-based searches for transiting exoplanets, having now found nearly 200 planets. The collaboration has produced over 200 refereed publications, and the WASP archive continues to produce new discoveries in the era of NASA's Kepler and TESS missions. |
Description | AS_OpenDay_presessional |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Aleks Scholz took part in a "Walk-in Neon Spectrum" event where a giant Neon spectrum was reproduced outside on a observatory grounds with people forming the spectrum. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | CC_MinervaScientifica |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Claudia Cyganowski visited Aberdour Primary school where she told the students about Mary Somerville and helped them recored a song about her. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://minervascientifica.co.uk/aberdour-primary-school/ |
Description | Oxted School talk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Moira Jardine gave a talk to pupils at Oxted School in Surrey. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Presentation at European AstroFest 2020 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Invited presentation "CHEOPS and the new science of Exoplanets" at AstroFest 2020, Kensington Town Hall. Sponsored by "Astronomy Now" magazine. Audience size ~ 800. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | St Andrews Observatory Open Nights |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The Observatory Open Nights are public engagement events at the St Andrews Observatory. They include stargazing, talks, telescope demonstrations, children's activities, and exhibits. Every year we organise 2 open nights. With several hundred visitors each time, this is one of the most recurring popular astronomy outreach events in Scotland. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | http://observatory.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk |
Description | Talk to Oxted School (Science Week) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Moira JARDINE contributed to the Science Week activities at Oxted School by giving a presentation. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | World Space Week 2020 Public Talk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Moira Jardine contributed to World Space Week by giving a talk. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |