The Lowell Observatory Solar Telescope: observing the sun as an exoplanet host star with the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph

Joe Llama

doi:10.1117/12.2560298

13 December 2020 The Lowell Observatory Solar Telescope: observing the sun as an exoplanet host star with the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph

Joe Llama

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11445, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIII; 114451W (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2560298
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2020, Online Only

Abstract

The Lowell Observatory Solar Telescope (LOST) will fiber feed sunlight into the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph (EXPRES) to observe the Sun during the day in an analogous way to stars at night. One main hurdle remains in detecting a terrestrial exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. The star itself can induce radial velocity jitter of several m/s, completely drowning the minuscule signal from an orbiting planet. Understanding this jitter has proved extremely challenging owing to the fact that the majority of stellar surfaces are unresolved. One star for which this isn’t the case is the Sun. Combining our EXPRES solar spectra with spacecraft data from missions like NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and the recently launched Parker Solar Probe will revolutionize our capability to remove the stellar induced RV jitter, greatly increasing our ability to detect a true Earth analog.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Joe Llama "The Lowell Observatory Solar Telescope: observing the sun as an exoplanet host star with the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph", Proc. SPIE 11445, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIII, 114451W (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2560298

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