Astronomy:Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array

From HandWiki
Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array
[edit on Wikidata]
A diagram of one of the project's enclosures with two telescopes

The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy located at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona.[1][2][3][4] The project's principal investigator is the American astronomer Jason Eastman.[1] The telescopes were manufactured by PlaneWave Instruments.

Science objectives

The primary science goal of MINERVA is to discover Earth-like planets in close-in (less than 50-day) orbits around nearby stars, and super-Earths (3-15 times the mass of Earth) in the habitable zones of the closest Sun-like stars. The secondary goal is to look for transits (eclipses) of known and newly discovered extrasolar planets. The unique design of the MINERVA observatory allows the pursuit of both goals simultaneously.

Specifications and status

  • Telescopes: Four PlaneWave CDK700, 0.7m telescopes within 2 custom telescope enclosures designed by LCOGT engineers. One MINERVA-Red telescope
  • Cameras: 2k × 2k back illuminated CCD with 15 µm pixels offering > 20’ f.o.v.
  • Spectrograph: Stabilized, R = 75,000 echelle spectrograph with iodine cell for precise radial velocimetry designed by KiwiStar Optics (a business unit of Callaghan Innovation; a New Zealand government-owned Crown entity).
  • Status: Full photometric science operations began in May 2015 at FLWO. The spectrograph was installed Dec 2015.

MINERVA-Red

MINERVA-Red is an echelle spectrograph optimized for the 'deep red', between 800 nm and 900 nm (where M-dwarfs are brightest) with a robotic 0.7 meter telescope. It uses a Fabry-Perot etalon and U/Ne lamp for wavelength calibration.[5][6]

See also

  • List of extrasolar planets

Other exoplanet search projects

For a complete list see footer "Exoplanet search projects"

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "A dedicated Exoplanet Oservatory". Harvard. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/minerva/. 
  2. ↑ Gudmundur Stefansson (26 December 2014). "MINERVA: MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array". https://astrobites.org/2014/12/26/minerva-miniature-exoplanet-radial-velocity-array/. 
  3. ↑ Kristina Hogstrom (16 August 2013). "MINERVA: Using Small, Fully Robotic Telescopes to Search for Habitable-Zone Exoplanets". NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/spacetech/strg/2013_nstrf_hogstrom.html. 
  4. ↑ "Earth-hunting, guerilla style". Planetquest JPL/NASA. 6 September 2012. http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/news/53. 
  5. ↑ Sliski, David; Blake, Cullen; Johnson, John A.; Plavchan, Peter; Wittenmyer, Robert A.; Eastman, Jason D.; Barnes, Stuart; Baker, Ashley (2017). "MINERVA-Red: A telescope dedicated to the discovery of planets orbiting the nearest low-mass stars". American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229 229: 146.09. Bibcode: 2017AAS...22914609S.  MINERVA-Red: A telescope dedicated to the discovery of planets orbiting the nearest low-mass stars
  6. ↑ "MINERVA-Red: An Intensive Survey for Planets Orbiting the Nearest Low-mass Stars to the Sun - Videos | Institute for Advanced Study". 7 October 2015. https://video.ias.edu/jointastro/2015/1006-CullenBlake. 

External links



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Astronomy:Miniature_Exoplanet_Radial_Velocity_Array&oldid=2994134"