{"id":8410,"date":"2014-08-04T15:47:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T20:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=8410"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:40:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:40:29","slug":"roboao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=8410","title":{"rendered":"Laser-wielding robot probes exoplanet systems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The ultraviolet Robo-AO laser originating from the Palomar 1.5-meter Telescope dome. Although the laser is invisible to the human eye, it shows up in digital SLR cameras once their internal UV blocking filters are removed. Credit: Robo-AO Collaboration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An international team, including Christoph Baranec of the University of Hawaii at Manoa\u2019s Institute for Astronomy and Nicholas Law of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, is using the world\u2019s first robotic laser adaptive optics system \u2014 Robo-AO \u2014\u00a0 to explore thousands of exoplanet systems (planets around other stars) at resolutions approaching those of the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

The results, which shed light on the formation of exotic exoplanet systems and confirm hundreds of exoplanets, have just been published in the Astrophysical Journal<\/em>. The design and operation of the unprecedented instrument has just been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/em><\/p>\n

Law with UNC’s department of physics and astronomy<\/a> is Robo-AO\u2019s project scientist and lead author on the Astrophysical Journal<\/em> paper.\u00a0Carl Ziegler from UNC is also a member of the Robo-AO team.<\/p>\n

Laser adaptive optics systems are used by terrestrial telescopes to remove the image-blurring effects of Earth\u2019s turbulent atmosphere, thereby capturing much sharper images than are otherwise possible from the ground. Baranec, Robo-AO\u2019s principal investigator and lead author of the Astrophysical Journal Letter<\/em>, led the development of the innovative Robo-AO system on the Palomar 1.5-meter telescope. It is the world\u2019s first instrument that fully automates the complex and often inefficient operation of laser adaptive optics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using Robo-AO\u2019s extreme efficiency to survey in exquisite detail all of the candidate exoplanet host stars that have been discovered by NASA\u2019s Kepler mission,\u201d said Baranec. \u201cWhile Kepler has an unrivaled ability to discover exoplanets that pass between us and their host star, it comes at the price of reduced image quality, and that\u2019s where Robo-AO excels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The automated observations taken with Robo-AO, color coded by scientific project (current to March 25, 2014). The dense red cluster in the upper left is the Kepler field. Credit: Robo-AO Collaboration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, analysis of the first part of the Robo-AO\/Kepler exoplanet host survey is already yielding surprising results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finding that \u201chot Jupiters\u201d \u2014 rare giant exoplanets in tight orbits \u2014 are almost three times more likely to be found in wide binary star systems than other exoplanets, shedding light on how these exotic objects formed,\u201d said Law. \u201cGoing further, Robo-AO\u2019s unique capabilities have allowed us to discover even rarer objects: binary star systems where each star has a Kepler-detected planetary system of its own. These systems will be uniquely interesting for studies of how the planets formed \u2014 and for science fiction about what life would be like with another planetary system right next door.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, the first Robo-AO survey, covering 715 Kepler candidate exoplanet hosts, is the single largest scientific adaptive optics survey ever. That record won\u2019t stand for very long, as the Robo-AO team is extending the survey to image each and every of the 4,000 Kepler candidate exoplanet hosts, and is ready to observe exoplanet hosts from Kepler\u2019s new K2 mission as they are discovered.<\/p>\n

The key to Robo-AO\u2019s success is its efficiency, allowing it to observe hundreds more targets per night than conventional adaptive optics systems. So far, the Robo-AO system has already been used to make over 13,000 observations.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a>
Images of a portion of the sky taken with Robo-AO show how much using Robo-AO improves observations. Photo credit: Robo-AO Collaboration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe automation of laser adaptive optics has allowed us to tackle scientific questions that were unimaginable just a few years ago. We can now observe tens of thousands of objects at Hubble-Space-Telescope-like resolution in short periods of time,\u201d Baranec said. \u201cNow that the technology has been proven, we\u2019re looking to bring it to the pristine skies of Maunakea, Hawaii, where it will be even more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other members of the Robo-AO team are Timothy Morton (Princeton), who interpreted the implications of Robo-AO observations for the candidate Kepler exoplanets; Reed Riddle (Caltech), who coded the Robo-AO software system; Ganesh Ravichandran, a student at W. Tresper Clarke High School, Westbury, New York; Kristina Hogstrom, Khanh Bui, Richard Dekany, Prof. Shri Kulkarni, and Shriharsh Tendulkar (Caltech); John Johnson (Harvard); and A. N. Ramaprakash, Mahesh Burse, Pravin Chordia and Hillol Das (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India).<\/p>\n

Founded in 1967, the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa conducts research into galaxies, cosmology, stars, planets and the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNC joins an international team of astronomers in using the world\u2019s first robotic laser adaptive optics system to explore thousands of exoplanet systems (planets around other stars) at resolutions approaching those of the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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