A Survey of Nearby Stars for Extrasolar Planets: Towards a Galactic Census of Terrestrial Planets

史蒂芬沃格特博士将继续长期努力，发现和描述附近恒星周围的行星。 他和他的团队将在W。M.凯克天文台、英澳望远镜和卡内基天文台的麦哲伦望远镜测量精确的径向速度。 这项研究将通过探测宿主星星径向速度的周期性变化来揭示恒星周围是否存在看不见的行星，这种变化是由看不见的行星引起的引力加速度引起的。该项目的目标是在多行星系统中识别新的行星，以及尚未发现有行星的恒星周围。如果行星也经过它的主星星，那么第一次和第二次凌日的红外和光学光变曲线将产生关于行星质量、密度、结构、温度和大气条件的进一步信息。这项研究的长远目标是将行星探测的门槛推到地球质量体系，并确定适合居住的类地行星的出现频率。这项努力旨在提供有关行星系统起源和演化的基础观测数据，并确定我们的太阳系是否存在（低质量岩石行星在内区，大质量木星气体巨星在外区）在宇宙中是常见或罕见的。沃格特博士的小组将继续与K-12学生和普通民众开展外联工作;他们还将与业余和专业天文学家合作，这些天文学家可以使用基于网络的工具进行轨道确定。

Dr. Steven Vogt will continue a long-term effort to discover and characterize planets around nearby stars. He and his group will obtain high-resolution spectra at the W. M. Keck Observatory, the Anglo-Australian Telescope, and the Magellan Telescopes of the Carnegie Observatories to measure precise radial velocities. The study will reveal the presence of unseen planets around stars by detecting periodic variations in the radial velocity of the host star due to gravitational acceleration induced by the unseen planet. The goal of the project is to identify new planets in multi-planet systems and also around stars not yet known to harbor planets. In cases where a planet also transits its host star, infrared and optical light curves of the primary and secondary transits will yield further information about mass, density, structure, temperature, and atmospheric conditions on the planet. The long-term goal of the research is to push the planet detection threshold into the terrestrial-mass regime, and determine the occurrence frequency of habitable terrestrial planets.This effort aims to provide fundamental observational data about the origins and evolution of planetary systems, and determine whether our own solar system (with low-mass rocky planets in the inner zone, and massive Jovian gas giants in the outer zone) is common or rare in the universe. Dr. Vogt's group will continue outreach efforts with K-12 students and the general population; they will also work with amateur and professional astronomers, who can perform orbit determination using a web-based tool.