A stellar revolution to characterise small planets and discover other Earths

作为欧内斯特·卢瑟福研究员，我试图回答人类的一些最基本的问题：还有其他类似地球的行星吗？什么样的行星适合人类居住？其他地方有生命吗？发现类地系外行星最可行的方法是监测恒星，以寻找行星围绕它们运行时产生的微小摆动。我们现在有了检测这些微小摆动的技术能力。我将解决剩下的主要挑战：过滤掉来自主星的“噪音”。恒星的表面不断地忙碌着，充满了等离子体流和强磁场。这种内在的可变性污染了对系外行星的观测，使我们无法探测到像地球和金星这样小的行星。此外，恒星的可变性使我们无法测量行星的最基本参数：它的质量。知道一颗行星的质量可以让我们研究它的内部组成和大气。未来对其大气层的观测将受到宿主恒星内在变异性的影响。为了克服这些障碍，我将开发恒星变化的详细模型。我的项目开始于离家很近的地方：为了更好地理解恒星，我将研究我们最著名的恒星--太阳。我会把它当作一颗遥远的、点状的恒星来研究。这一视角将使我能够从根本上推进我们对其他恒星的理解，并对恒星的内在可变性进行建模，以达到远远超出当今极限的精确度。我将设计分析工具，以消除系外行星观测中的恒星污染。这将引发系外行星研究的飞跃；它将使我能够以前所未有的信心确定它们的质量，从而能够有力地描述系外行星的大气层和内部。我会将我的工具公之于众。我的工作将最大限度地提高即将到来的太空任务发现系外行星并检查其大气层的能力，包括NASA/JWST、ESA/柏拉图和ESA/Ariel任务。我是Terra Hunting实验的成员，这是世界上第一个拥有探测其他地球的技术和后勤能力的天文台。我将把我的分析工具应用于这些观测，以探测金星和类地轨道上的类地系外行星。最终，这些发现将使我们能够检验我们关于生命如何塑造其宿主行星的理论，并更好地了解我们在宇宙中的位置。

As an Ernest Rutherford Fellow, I seek to answer some of humanity's most fundamental questions: Are there other planets similar to Earth? What kinds of planets are habitable? Is there life elsewhere? The most viable way to discover Earth-like exoplanets is to monitor stars to look for the tiny wobbling induced by planets orbiting them. We now have the technological capability to detect these tiny wobbles. I will tackle the main remaining challenge: filtering out the "noise" that arises from the host stars. The surfaces of stars are constantly bustling with plasma flows and strong magnetic fields. This intrinsic variability contaminates observations of exoplanets and prevents us from detecting planets as small as Earth and Venus. Furthermore, stellar variability precludes us from measuring a planet's most fundamental parameter: its mass. Knowing a planet's mass allows us to study its interior composition and its atmosphere. Future observations of their atmospheres will be contaminated by the host stars' intrinsic variability. To overcome these obstacles, I will develop detailed models of stellar variability.My project begins close to home: to better understand stars, I will examine our best-known star, the Sun. I will study it as though it were a distant, point-like star. This perspective will allow me to radically advance our understanding of other stars, and to model intrinsic stellar variability to a precision well beyond today's limit. I will design analysis tools to remove stellar contamination from observations of exoplanets. This will trigger a leap forward in the study of exoplanets; it will allow me to determine their masses with unprecedented confidence, thereby enabling robust characterisation of exoplanets' atmospheres and interiors. I will make my tool available publicly. My work will maximise the ability of upcoming space missions to discover exoplanets and examine their atmospheres, including the NASA/JWST, ESA/PLATO and ESA/ARIEL missions. I am a member of the Terra Hunting Experiment, the world's first observatory to have the technological and logistical capability to detect other Earths. I will apply my analytical tools to these observations to detect terrestrial exoplanets in Venus- and Earth-like orbits. Ultimately, these discoveries will enable us to test our theories of how life shapes its host planet, and to better understand our place in the Universe.