[ad_1]
A system of five planets around TOI-1233 includes a super-Earth (foreground) that could help solve the mysteries of how the planets were formed. The four deepest planets were discovered by high school students Kartik Pinglé and Jasmine Wright alongside researcher Tansu Daylan. The fifth outermost planet in the photo was recently discovered by a separate team of astronomers. Artist rendering. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
The high school students turned scientists released their results this week, thanks to a research mentorship program at the Center for Astrophysics; Harvard and Smithsonian.
They may be the youngest astronomers to make a discovery to date.
This week, Kartik Pinglé, 16, and Jasmine Wright, 18, co-authored a peer-reviewed article in The astronomical journal describing the discovery of four new exoplanets about 200 light years from Earth.
High School Students Participated in Research Under the Student Research Mentorship Program (SRMP) at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian. Led by astrochemist Clara Sousa-Silva, SRMP connects local high school students interested in research with real-world scientists at Harvard and WITH. Students then work with their mentors on a one-year research project.
“It’s a steep learning curve,” Sousa-Silva says, but it’s worth it. “At the end of the program, students can say they have done active and cutting-edge research in astrophysics.”
The particular achievement of Pinglé and Wright is rare. High school students rarely publish research, Sousa-Silva says. “Although this is one of the goals of SRMP, it is very unusual for high school students to be co-authors of journal articles.
With guidance from mentor Tansu Daylan, post-doctoral fellow at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, the students studied and analyzed data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TESS is a space satellite that orbits the Earth and monitors nearby bright stars with the ultimate goal of discovering new planets.
The team focused on TESS Object of Interest (TOI) 1233, a near and bright star similar to the Sun. To perceive if the planets were orbiting the star, they narrowed on the light of TOI-1233.
“We were looking to see changes in light over time,” Pinglé explains. “The idea being that if the planet passes through the star, or passes in front of it, it [periodically] cover the star and decrease its luminosity. “
To the team’s surprise, they discovered not one but four planets orbiting TOI-1233.
“I was very excited and very shocked,” says Wright. “We knew that was the point of Daylan’s research, but finding a multiplanetary system and being part of the discovery team was really cool.
Three of the planets are considered “sub-Neptunes”, gaseous planets smaller than those in our own solar system. Neptune. It takes between 6 and 19.5 days for each of them to revolve around TOI-1233. The fourth planet is qualified as “super-Earth” for its large size and its rockiness; it revolves around the star in just under four days.
Daylan hopes to study the planets even closer in the coming year.
“Our species has long envisioned planets beyond our solar system and with multi-planetary systems you kind of hit the jackpot,” he says. “The planets originated from the same disc of matter around the same star, but they ended up being different planets with different atmospheres and different climates due to their different orbits. So we would like to understand the fundamental processes of the formation and evolution of planets using this planetary system.
Daylan adds that it was a “win-win” to work with Pinglé and Wright on the study.
“As a researcher, I really enjoy interacting with young brains who are open to experimentation and learning and have minimal bias,” he says. “I also think it’s very beneficial for high school students because they are exposed to cutting edge research and it quickly prepares them for a career as a researcher.
The SRMP was created in 2016 by Or Graur, a former postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The program accepts a dozen students per year, with priority given to under-represented minorities.
Through a partnership with the city of Cambridge, students are paid four hours a week for the research they conduct.
“They are salaried scientists,” Sousa-Silva says. “We want to encourage them to say that pursuing an academic career is fun and rewarding, no matter what they end up pursuing in life.”
Reference: “TESS Discovery of a Super-Earth and Three Sub-Neptunes Hosted by the Bright, Sun-like Star HD 108236” by Tansu Daylan, Kartik Pinglé, Jasmine Wright, Maximilian N. Günther, Keivan G. Stassun, Stephen R. Kane, Andrew Vanderburg, Daniel Jontof-Hutter, Joseph E. Rodriguez, Avi Shporer, Chelsea X. Huang, Thomas Mikal-Evans, Mariona Badenas-Agusti, Karen A. Collins, Benjamin V. Rackham, Samuel N. Quinn, Ryan Cloutier , Kevin I. Collins, Pere Guerra, Eric LN Jensen, John F. Kielkopf, Bob Massey, Richard P. Schwarz, David Charbonneau, Jack J. Lissauer, Jonathan M. Irwin, Özgür Bastürk, Benjamin Fulton, Abderahmane Soubkiou, Benkhaldoun Zouhair , Steve B. Howell, Carl Ziegler, César Briceño, Nicholas Law, Andrew W. Mann, Nic Scott, Elise Furlan, David R. Ciardi, Rachel Matson, Coel Hellier, David R. Anderson, R. Paul Butler, Jeffrey D. Crane, Johanna K. Teske, Stephen A. Shectman, Martti H. Kristiansen, Ivan A. Terentev, Hans Martin Schwengeler, George R. Ricker, Roland Vanderspek, S ara Seager, Joshua N. Winn, Jon M. Jenkins, Zachory K. Berta-Thompson, Luke G. Bouma, William Fong, Gabor Furesz, Christopher E. Henze, Edward H. Morgan, Elisa Quintana, Eric B. Ting and Joseph D. Twicken, January 25, 2021, The astronomical journal.
DOI: 10.3847 / 1538-3881 / abd73e
Pinglé, a junior in high school, plans to study applied mathematics or astrophysics after graduation. Wright has just been accepted into a five-year Masters program in Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
[ad_2]
Source link