IRES Collaborative Research: Student-Assisted Global Exoplanet Search (SAGES)

IRES-SAGES将培训美国本科生发现和描述太阳系外的行星。学生将出国接受国际专家的指导。学生们将把他们获得的技能和研究成果带回美国，在那里他们将继续他们的调查，培训同学，传播他们的发现，并为当地社区和K-12学校开展外联活动。学生们的研究将在特别明亮的恒星周围的近轨道上寻找气体巨星，这些恒星被称为“热行星”。学生们的家乡机构和他们将访问的外国机构都是Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope（KELT）项目的成员，这是一个全球合作项目，在发现这些行星方面有着良好的记录。参与IRES-SAGES将为学生在物理和空间相关行业的就业做好准备，推进天体物理学研究领域，促进国家和国际对空间探索的兴趣，并通过推广活动提高美国的科学素养。IRES-SAGES学生的招聘将针对传统上在物理科学领域代表性不足的人口群体。系外行星凌日现象的调查--当一颗行星部分食时，星星会变暗--在很大程度上仅限于比十等星更暗的恒星。KELT的创建是为了通过使用专门设计的望远镜来搜索行星过境更明亮的恒星，以防止图像饱和。目前已知的只有大约24颗亮于10等的热彗星，但它们几乎是所有关于系外行星大气层、直接热辐射和自旋轨道对准的文献的来源。在明亮恒星周围发现更多的过境超级地球和海王星之前，技术进步到我们可以更彻底地调查它们，过境明亮恒星的热彗星仍然是单个系外行星探索的最佳地点。KELT通过其全球天文台网络和具有不同关键专业的天文学家发现了其中的几颗行星。IRES-SAGES将利用这一网络来培训美国学生发现和描述这些行星，以及KELT的微透镜，径向速度和过境计划所针对的更广泛的行星类型。的外国合作伙伴。

IRES-SAGES will train U.S. undergraduate students to discover and characterize planets outside our solar system. Students will travel abroad to receive mentorship from international experts. The students will bring their acquired skills and research products back to the US where they will continue their investigations, train fellow students, disseminate their findings, and develop outreach activities for their local communities and K-12 schools. The students' research will look for gas giants in close orbits around especially bright stars - planets known as 'hot Jupiters.' The students' home institutions and the foreign institutions they will visit are members of the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project, a global collaboration with a proven record of discovering these planets. Participation in IRES-SAGES will prepare the students for employment in physics- and space-related industries, advance the field of astrophysics research, promote national and international interests in space exploration, and improve scientific literacy in the US through outreach activities. The recruitment of IRES-SAGES students will target demographic groups traditionally underrepresented in the physical science fields.Surveys for exoplanet transits - dimmings of a star when one of its planets partially eclipses it - have been largely limited to stars fainter than tenth magnitude. KELT was created to search for planets transiting brighter stars through the use of telescopes specially designed to prevent image saturation. Only about two dozen hot Jupiters transiting stars brighter than tenth magnitude are known, but they are responsible for nearly all of the published literature on exoplanetary atmospheres, direct thermal emission, and spin-orbit alignment. Until more transiting super-Earths and Neptunes are discovered around bright stars and technology advances to the point where we can investigate them more thoroughly, hot Jupiters transiting bright stars remain the best sites for individual exoplanet exploration. KELT has discovered several of these planets through its global network of observatories and astronomers with different key specialties. IRES-SAGES will leverage this network to train US students in the discovery and characterization of these planets, as well as the wider range of planet types targeted by the microlensing, radial velocity, and transit programs of KELT?s foreign partners.