EXOA7

We will present a new instrument PLATOSpec which will be installed at E152 telescope at La Silla Observatory, Chile in 2023. PLATOSpec will be an echelle spectrograph with resolving power of 70000 capable of monitoring wavelength range from 380 to 680 nm with an expected accuracy in radial velocities around 3 m/s. PLATOSpec will have a blue sensitive chip, therefore, we will be able to provide a valuable information about the stellar activity. Main aims of PLATOSpec will be the ground based follow-up of currently TESS and later PLATO missions planetary candidates. We will be able to contribute mainly to detection and characterization of hot Jupiters and to discrimination of false positives and to determination of stellar parameters.

How to cite: Kabath, P., Vanzi, L., Hatzes, A., Guenther, E., Brahm, R., Janik, J., Minezaki, T., Skarka, M., and Karjalainen, R.: PLATOSpec a new spectrograph for the PLATO targets follow-up, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-124, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-124, 2022.

Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm ellipse) and two separate instruments (FGS and AIRS) covering simultaneously 0.5-7.8 micron spectral range. The satellite is best placed into an L2 orbit to maximise the thermal stability and the field of regard. The payload module is passively cooled via a series of V-Groove radiators; the detectors for the AIRS are the only items that require active cooling via an active Ne JT cooler. The Ariel payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 16 ESA countries, which include the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and a NASA contribution.

This presentation provides an overall summary of the science and instrument design for Ariel and presents the many activities that the Ariel team have planned to engage the science community at large and the public prior to launch. These include the Ariel Dry-Run program and citizen-science programs such as ExoClock and the Ariel Data Challenges.

How to cite: Tinetti, G., Eccleston, P., Lueftinger, T., Salvignol, J.-C., Fahmy, S., and Alves de Oliveira, C. and the Ariel team: Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-1114, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-1114, 2022.

The Twinkle Space Mission is a space-based observatory that has been conceived to measure the atmospheric composition of exoplanets, stars and solar system objects. The satellite is based on a high-heritage platform and will carry a 0.45 m telescope with a visible and infrared spectrograph providing simultaneous wavelength coverage from 0.5 - 4.5 μm. The spacecraft will be launched into a Sun-synchronous low-Earth polar orbit and will operate in this highly stable thermal environment for a baseline lifetime of seven years.

Twinkle will have the capability to provide high-quality infrared spectroscopic characterisation of the atmospheres several hundred bright exoplanets, covering a wide range of planetary types. Additionally, ultra-precise photometric light curves will accurately constrain orbital parameters, including ephemerides and TTVs/TDVs present in multi-planet systems.

Twinkle is available for researchers around the globe in two ways:

1) joining its collaborative multi-year survey programmes, which will observe hundreds of exoplanets and thousands of solar system objects; and

2) accessing dedicated telescope time on the spacecraft, which they can schedule for any combination of science cases.

I will present an overview of Twinkle’s capabilities and discuss the broad range of targets the mission could observe, demonstrating the huge scientific potential of the spacecraft. Furthermore, I will highlight the work of the Science Team of the Twinkle exoplanet survey, showcasing their science interests and the studies into Twinkle’s capabilities that they have conducted since joining the mission. Finally, I will discuss ongoing, and upcoming, early career programmes related to the Twinkle mission.

How to cite: Edwards, B., Wilcock, B., Joshua, M., Tessenyi, M., Stotesbury, I., Archer, R., and Barrathwaj Raman Mohan, Y.: The Twinkle Space Mission's Extrasolar Survey, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-597, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-597, 2022.

Summary: The ESA Voyage 2050 Senior Committee [0] recommends that “launching a large mission enabling the characterisation of the atmosphere of temperate exoplanets in the mid-infrared should be a top priority for ESA within the Voyage 2050 timeframe.”  The Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) mission concept is a project that addresses this science question. LIFE was initiated in Europe with the goal to consolidate all necessary efforts and define a realistic roadmap that will lead to the launch of a large, space-based MIR nulling interferometer. This mission should be able to investigate the atmospheric properties of a large sample of (primarily) terrestrial, temperate exoplanets. In this contribution we present a status report and new results from the LIFE Mission initiative.

Artist's impression of the LIFE concept.

The LIFE mission concept: 

LIFE is an ambitious space mission with unparalleled scientific capabilities optimised for the direct detection and atmospheric characterization of hundreds of exoplanets, dozens of which will be terrestrial, temperate and possibly hospitable to life as we know it [1,2,3]. As a formation-flying mid-infrared nulling interferometer, LIFE is located in L2 and consists of 4 collector spacecraft with 2 - 3.5 m apertures and a combiner spacecraft. The observing wavelength range is 4 - 17.5  μm  (requirement) / 3 - 20  μm (goal) and the required spectral resolution is 35 (req.) / 50 (goal). The total mission lifetime is 5-6 years (requirement) including a search phase (2.5 years), that will be used to detect hundreds of planets, and a characterization phase (up to 3.5 years) that will be used for a detailed investigation of atmospheric diversity and the search for biosignatures. Other science cases taking advantage of a mid-IR interferometer in space will be possible (up to 20%; tbc.).

New Results and Progress: 

Over the past two years, the LIFE community grew significantly into an initiative with more than 150 collaborators from all over the world. We will discuss present ]the current structure of teams and working groups. Furthermore, we will summarise a number of new science results and trade-off studies that have been carried out and present a short overview of ongoing and future activities. 

References:[0] https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/voyage-2050 [1] Quanz, S. P., Kammerer, J., Defrère, D., et al. 2018, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI, 10701,107011I. [2] Defrère, D., Léger, A., Absil, O., et al. 2018, Experimental Astronomy, 46, 543. [3] Quanz,S. P.,et al. 2019. , arXiv e-prints arXiv:1908.01316

How to cite: Angerhausen, D., Alei, E., Quanz, S., and LIFE Initiative, T.: Status and progress of the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) mission, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-1148, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-1148, 2022.

The Near-InfraRed Planet Searcher (NIRPS) is a new ultra-stable near-infrared spectrograph installed on ESO 3.6-m Telescope in La Silla, Chile. Aiming to achieve a precision of 1 m/s, NIRPS is operating together with HARPS. NIRPS has been designed to explore the exciting prospects offered by the M dwarfs, focusing on three main science cases: 1) High-precision RV survey of M dwarf aiming at detecting Earth-like planets in the habitable zone; 2) Mass (and density) measurements of planetary candidates orbiting M dwarfs from transit surveys, and 3) Atmospheric characterization of exoplanets via transmission spectroscopy. To achieve its science goals, NIRPS is operating in the Y-, J- and H-bands with continuous coverage from 0.97 to 1.8 μm. It will ensure high radial velocity precision and high spectral fidelity corresponding to 1 m/s in less than 30 min for an M3 star with H = 8.4. NIRPS is part of a new generation of adaptive optics (AO) fiber-fed spectrographs. NIRPS uses a 0.4-arcsecond multi-mode fiber, half that required for a seeing-limited instrument, allowing a spectrograph design that is half as big as that of HARPS, while meeting the requirements for high throughput and high spectral resolution. A 0.9-arcsecond fiber is used for fainter targets and degraded seeing conditions. The entire optical design is oriented to maximize high spectral resolution, long-term spectral stability and overall throughput. The instrument covers the 0.97 to 1.81 μm domain on 69 spectral
 orders with a spectral resolution of 80,000 recorded on a Hawaii 4RG 4096 × 4096 infrared detector. In return for the manpower effort and financial contributions of the consortium to design, build, maintain and operate NIRPS for five years, ESO will grant the consortium a period of Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) corresponding to 40% of the 3.6-m Telescope time, leaving ample time for community-driven science topics. Its first light was performed in May 2022. We present here the performance of the spectrograph and first tests on sky.

How to cite: Bouchy, F., Wildi, F., and González Hernández, J. I.: The new Near-Infrared Adaptive-Optics assisted high-resolution NIRPS spectrograph on the ESO 3.6m, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-937, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-937, 2022.

In the past half-century, a new generation of successively ever larger and more sophisticated telescopes and instruments have ushered in a golden age of remarkable results in astronomy. This road is taking us to the age of the extremely large telescopes (ELTs). Riding on this wave and contributing to it is exoplanet research. We are characterising the orbit and mass of exoplanets with Doppler measurements which, combined with the transit technique provide estimates of bulk densities and compositions. The picture is completed with upcoming space missions such as ARIEL or PLATO. To prepare the road into this new era, we propose to build the MultiArray of Combined Telescope (MARCOT). This large aperture telescope consists of multiple identical low-cost telescopes, at a fraction of the cost of building an ELT. We propose MARCOT to support science cases, such as time-domain astronomy in general and exoplanet research in particular, that are too expensive or impractical to conduct on ELTs. MARCOT will be linked through optical fibres combined by a novel Multi-Mode Photonic Lantern (MM-PL) into a MM fibre that will feed a single high-resolution echelle spectrograph, optimized for extreme-precision radial velocity measurements. We will present the status of the project focusing on the work carried out towards the conceptual design and the prototype of MARCOT, which is being built at the CAHA Observatory (Almeria, Spain), to feed the CARMENES spectrograph.

How to cite: Amado, P., Aceituno, J., Pozuelos, F., and Ortíz, J. L.: MARCOT: A new approach to a large aperture telescope with a novel multimode photonic lantern, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-312, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-312, 2022.

MAROON-X is a red optical EPRV spectrograph on the 8m Gemini North telescope that has been in regular science operations for the last two years. Depending on the amount of time available and the interests of the organizers, I could report on the current performance of the instrument, science results, future plans, and/or lessons learned. In terms of performance, the instrument continues to deliver radial velocity precision at the sub 30 cm/s level. We have found that many field M dwarfs have activity levels well below 1 m/s on short timescales, thus opening up the possibility of detecting very small planets on orbits out to the distance of the circumstellar habitable zone with intensive observational campaigns. I will report science results from a large, homogeneous follow-up program for TESS's M dwarfs, a blind search for planets around the nearest M dwarfs, and a selection of results from community use of the instrument. We will be upgrading the instrument with a laser frequency comb to improve the long-term calibration later this year. We also have the approval to install a solar telescope feed for the instrument. A key lesson learned is the importance of continual assessment and adjustment of the calibration (i.e., don't "set it and forget it") in the EPRV regime.

How to cite: Luque, R. and the MAROON-X instrument team: An update on MAROON-X, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-90, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-90, 2022.

Technology now exists to enable large optical 
systems that are capable of resolving and measuring faint sources not 
accessible with current remote sensing instruments and detectors. The possibility 
of creating ground-based telescopes at the 50m-scale with sufficient wavefront control 
to both fully overcome the effects of the atmosphere, but with exquisite coronagraphic 
capability starting at the telescope entrance pupil, means we may solve some of the most 
fundamental cross-cutting scientific questions: like, "is there life outside of the solar system?".

The IAC is part of a consortium with the University of Hawaii and Universities in Lyon 
to develop the technologies needed for the next generation telescopes aimed at direct 
imaging of exoplanets around bright stars: the "ExoLife Finder (ELF)" telescope.
We have a detailed design for a 3.5-m diameter prototype, nicknamed Small-ELF, to
be built and installed at Teide Observatory by 2025. I will present the technological
and scientific challenges of such telescope.

How to cite: Lodieu, N., Kuhn, J., Moretto, G., Rebolo, R., Zhou, Y., Langlois, M., and Lewis, K.: Small-ELF: a propotype for the future ExoLife Finder hybrid optical telescope, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-510, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-510, 2022.

Tartu Observatory telescopes offer unique guaranteed access to objects in the Northern hemisphere. The observational facilities include a 1.5- m and 0.6-m classic Cassegrain reflectors, and 0.31-m remotely controllable telescope .

 The 1.5 m telescope is currently equipped with a long-slit Cassegrain spectrograph used for stellar characterisation. Historically, the objects of interest have been massive stars but we are now developing new research direction and expanding the list of targets to exoplanet- and disk-hosting stars.

We have started evaluating our capabilities to characterise host stars spectroscopically to determine their parameters and composition. In 2020, we carried out a pilot study of a TESS candidate planet host, which we found to have a rare, strong chemical peculiarity [1]. This also allowed us to prepare our tools, workflow, and end-to-end analysis. We are also contributing to the European Space Agency Ariel space mission by offering stellar activity monitoring.

The 0.6-m and 0.31-m telescopes are utilised for photometric measurements and the 0.31-m one in particular has been a workhorse for exoplanet transit monitoring. Since 2020, we have made significant preparations to develop and prove our transit observation capabilities: we have observed more than 70 transit light curves. About  half of them have been submitted to ExoClock to contribute to Ariel mission planning.

Concerning future upgrades, Tartu Observatory will have new instruments by the middle of 2023. The upgrades include procuring a medium resolution echelle spectrograph (projected bandwidth 390 nm to  750 nm, R= 25 000) and new photometer (Johnson-Cousins BVRI and SDSS filters) for the 1.5-m telescope, which will not only enhance our capabilities in both spectroscopic and photometric data retrieval of host stars. In addition, a new remote control system of the telescope will be installed and improvements on instrumentation for the 0.6-m and 0.31-m photometric telescopes will be made. 

This presentation will give an overview of our facilities, and of current and future spectroscopic and photometric capabilities.

References:

• “A rare phosphorus-rich star in an eclipsing binary from TESS”, Colin P. et al., A&A 658 A105 (2022), DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202142124

How to cite: Ramler, H., Kama, M., Folsom, C., Aret, A., and Eenmäe, T.: Observational Facilities and Stellar Characterization Capabilities at Tartu Observatory, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-1149, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-1149, 2022.

ExoSim 2 is a time-domain simulator for exoplanet observations. The software can simulate exoplanetary transit, eclipse and phase curve observations from ground and space-based instruments. Such simulation can capture temporal effects, such as correlated noise and systematics on the light curve. The simulator will produce spectral images like those produced by an actual observation.

ExoSim 2 has been developed for the Ariel Space Mission, to assess the impact of astronomical and instrumental systematic on astrophysical measurement, and to prepare the data reduction pipeline against realistic data sets. ExoSim 2 output can be utilised by different data reduction methods, not only to determine the best pipeline strategy to remove the systematics in the measurements but also to assess the confidence level of retrieved quantities.

ExoSim 2 is a refactored version of ExoSim: an end-to-end simulator that models noise and systematics in a dynamical simulation. The first version of ExoSim (Sarkar et al. 2020) was developed for the Ariel Space Mission, then adapted to the James Webb Telescope and presented to the community as JexoSim (Sarkar et al. 2019 and Sarkar et al. 2021).

ExoSim 2 is meant to be easier to use than its predecessor and largely customizable. It is completely written in Python, tested against Python 3.7+, and follows the object-oriented philosophy. It comes with an installer, documented examples, a comprehensive guide, and almost every part of the code can be replaced by a user-defined function, which allows the user to include new functionalities to the simulator.

We believe that ExoSim 2 is a versatile tool, which can be used for the development of instruments other than Ariel, or to assess the impact of different astronomical or instrumental systematics.

How to cite: Mugnai, L. V., Pascale, E., Al-Refaie, A. F., Bocchieri, A., Papageorgiou, A., and Sarkar, S.: ExoSim 2. The new time-domain simulator applied to the Ariel space mission, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-370, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-370, 2022.