Testing the ARIEL Exoplanet Space Observatory

Oxford Physics are part of the international team helping to develop ESA's ARIEL Exoplanet space telescope due for launch in the late 2020s. ARIEL is a 1 m class telescope that will be located at the 2nd Earth-Sun Lagrange point to carry out the first detailed transit spectroscopy survey of more than 1000 exoplanetary atmospheres. Our group, supported by the UK Space Agency, are working on the optical ground test equipment to ensure that ARIEL can meet its strict stability requirements that will allow the mission once launched to untangle the signal of a planet's atmosphere from that of its host star. We are looking for a student to join our team to work on the design, test and development of ARIEL's optical ground test equipment. The student will then link the performance we can measure on the ground will to ARIEL's predicted ability to characterise the atmospheres of planets around other stars.

This project will involve the development of equipment for testing space instrumentation, so a first degree in physics/astrophysics or an engineering related discipline is required.