CAREER: Precise Ground-Based Spectrophotometry as a Lens for Planetary and Stellar Physics

当光穿过行星的大气层时，它会遇到能够吸收或散射光的原子和分子。天文学家利用这一事实来了解太阳系外行星(“系外行星”)大气的组成和结构。从地球上看，当一颗系外行星从其恒星前面经过时，极少量(但可测量的)光被吸收。不同的元素会以不同的方式吸收不同颜色(波长)的光。研究人员将使用望远镜研究系外行星大气层吸收或传输不同波长的光的方式。然后，他将推断行星大气的组成和结构。这将扩展我们对太阳系八大行星以外的行星大气的了解，并让我们更好地了解大气是如何形成和随时间变化的。由此得出的理解将有助于我们更好地理解我们自己的太阳系可能是如何达到其当前状态的，以及包括地球在内的行星大气在未来可能会如何变化。调查员将让博士后和本科生参与他的工作。他还将在一年级的研讨会和高级科学可视化课程中开发一个将艺术和科学结合起来的项目。最后，他将与一家天文馆和科罗拉多艺术工作室合作开发一个K-12项目。这位研究人员提议利用他在阿帕奇点天文台对3.5米望远镜的机构访问时间，除了申请在塞罗托洛美洲天文台和双子座天文台的时间。他将回答两个主要问题：“行星如何共生并保留它们的挥发物？”以及“气溶胶是如何在行星大气中形成的？”他将创建一个开源的Python包，使用户能够1)从原始数据中提取时间序列光谱，2)减少差分分光光度数据，以及3)可视化和拟合数据集。这项工作还将解释恒星黑子引入系外行星传输光谱的噪声。这一奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

When light passes through a planet’s atmosphere, it meets atoms and molecules that can absorb or scatter it. Astronomers use this fact to learn about the composition and structure of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (“exoplanets”). When an exoplanet passes in front of its star, as seen from the Earth, a tiny (yet measurable) amount of light is absorbed. Different elements absorb different colors (wavelengths) of light differently. The investigator will use telescopes to study the way exoplanets’ atmospheres absorb or transmit light at different wavelengths. He will then infer the composition and structure of the planets’ atmospheres. This will expand our knowledge of planetary atmospheres beyond those of the eight Solar System planets and give a better idea of how atmospheres form and change with time. The understanding derived will help us better understand how our own Solar System may have arrived at its current state, and how planetary atmospheres, including Earth’s, may change in the future. The investigator will involve a postdoc and undergraduate students in his work. He will also develop a program integrating art and science in a first-year seminar and in an upper-level class on advanced scientific visualization. Finally, he will develop a K-12 program in collaboration with a planetarium and the Colorado Studio for the Arts.The investigator proposes to use his institutional access time to the 3.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory, in addition to applying for time at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory and the Gemini Observatory. He will address two primary questions: "How do planets accrete and retain their volatiles?" and "How do aerosols form in planetary atmospheres?" He will create an open-source Python package that will enable users to 1) extract time-series spectra from raw data, 2) reduce differential spectrophotometry data, and 3) visualize and fit data sets. The work will also account for noise introduced into exoplanet transmission spectra by starspots.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.