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

史蒂文·沃格特博士将继续一项长期的努力，以发现和描述附近恒星周围的行星。他和他的团队将在W.M.Keck天文台、英澳望远镜和卡内基天文台的麦哲伦望远镜上获得高分辨率光谱，以测量精确的径向速度。这项研究将通过探测主星的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，这些变化是由看不见的行星引起的引力加速造成的。该项目的目标是在多行星系统中识别新的行星，以及在尚未发现行星的恒星周围发现新的行星。在行星也凌日其主恒星的情况下，第一次和第二次凌日的红外和光学光曲线将产生关于行星上的质量、密度、结构、温度和大气条件的进一步信息。这项研究的长期目标是将行星探测阈值推向地质量区域，并确定可居住的类地行星的出现频率。这一努力旨在提供关于行星系统起源和演化的基本观测数据，并确定我们自己的太阳系(内层有低质量的岩石行星，外层有大质量的木星气态巨星)在宇宙中是常见的还是罕见的。沃格特博士的团队将继续与K-12学生和普通民众合作；他们还将与业余天文学家和专业天文学家合作，后者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.