SPECULOOS

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Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars
Speculoos 4 telescopes.jpg
Alternative namesSPECULOOS  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Named after speculoos   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Location(s) Paranal Observatory, Teide Observatory, Chile, Spain OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Organization European Southern Observatory
University of Liège   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Telescope style astronomical survey
infrared telescope
Ritchey–Chrétien telescope   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Number of telescopes5  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Diameter1 m (3 ft 3 in) OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Website www.speculoos.uliege.be OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  Commons-logo.svg Related media on Commons

SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) is a project consisting of SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile and SPECULOOS Northern Observatory (SNO) at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. [1] [2]

Contents

The SSO consists of four Ritchey–Chrétien telescopes of 1-metre primary aperture, made by ASTELCO. Each telescope is equipped with a NTM-1000 robotic mount and will search for Earth-sized exoplanets around 1000 ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] As of June 2019, the SNO consists of one telescope, but more might be added in the future with up to three telescopes for SNO. [8] SPECULOOS is complemented by SAINT-EX and TRAPPIST. [9]

Science overview

Ultra-cool dwarf stars and brown dwarfs have a small radius, causing the transits caused by planets to be deeper. This allows the detection of terrestrial planets around these dwarfs, which are predicted to be common around brown dwarfs. [10] The TRAPPIST-1 system showed that ultra-cool dwarfs form terrestrial planets in the habitable zone. For brown dwarfs it was predicted that 175 of these objects need to be monitored to find one system with transiting planets. [11]

During the survey operation each telescope will observe one target for about 10 nights. This kind of observation is optimized for each target to find exoplanets in the habitable zone. To observe 500 targets in the southern hemisphere 1200 nights or 5 years are needed. The continuous observation of one target is needed to find these exoplanets in the habitable zone around ultra-cool dwarf stars. Such planets are expected to have a short transit duration, which can be small as 15 minutes. [12]

Individual telescopes and first light

First light image of the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory's Callisto telescope, showing the Horsehead Nebula. Nebulosa testa di cavallo con SPECULOOS.jpg
First light image of the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory’s Callisto telescope, showing the Horsehead Nebula.

The system of SPECULOOS - South (SSO) comprises four telescopes called Europa, Io, Callisto, and Ganymede. The telescopes are named after the Galilean moons that orbit the planet Jupiter, the most massive planet in the solar system. The first telescope (Europa) saw its first light in April 2017. [13] The second telescope (Io) began operations in October 2017. [14] As of December 2019, all SPECULOOS - South telescopes are operational. [1] ESO released first light images of SPECULOOS - South on the 2018-12-05. The telescopes did take images of the Carina Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula and the spiral galaxy Messier 83. [2] Artemis is the first telescope for SPECULOOS - North (SNO) it began operations on June 20, 2019. [1]

The robotic observations of each of the four telescopes is controlled by the program ACP Expert. [15] Each telescope is equipped with an Andor Peltier-cooled deeply depleted 2k × 2k CCD camera and the telescopes have a 12 × 12 arcminutes field of view. [12]

Wavelength

The four 1 m-diameter telescopes will be equipped with cameras sensitive in the near-infrared, the wavelength range in which ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs emit most of their light. The detectors are optimized for 700 to 1000 nm wavelength, to observe ultracool dwarfs with a J-band magnitude of 14 or brighter at good seeing conditions. [12]

Collaboration

SPECULOOS involves scientists from the University of Liège (Belgium), the University of Birmingham (UK), the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge (UK), the University of Bern (Swiss), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the King Abdulaziz University (Saudi Arabia), under the leadership of Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) supports and hosts the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) at the Paranal Observatory. [2] [9]

Name

As with the other space observation projects of the University of Liège like TRAPPIST, the name Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars makes up a backronym referring to a Belgian food: in this case, the spiced biscuit known as Speculoos.

Results

SPECULOOS was involved in the discovery of the exoplanet K2-135b, the exoplanets around L 98-59 and the planetary system TOI-178. [16] [17] SAINT-EX, which is part of the SPECULOOS project helped in the discovery of the planets around TOI-1266. [16] In 2022, the discovery of two planets, one in the habitable zone, around LP 890-9 using SPECULOOS was announced. [18]

The first light data of the SPECULOOS telescopes revealed the eclipsing binary brown dwarf 2M1510A, which is only the second eclipsing binary brown dwarf found so far. [19] The data by SPECULOOS did help to characterise low-mass eclipsing binaries and plays an important part in the follow-up of a new class of rapid rotating low-mass stars. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paranal Observatory</span> Observatory

Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at 2,635 m (8,645 ft) altitude, 120 km (70 mi) south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, it is the largest optical-infrared observatory in the Southern Hemisphere; worldwide, it is second to the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wide Angle Search for Planets</span> Exoplanet search project

WASP or Wide Angle Search for Planets is an international consortium of several academic organisations performing an ultra-wide angle search for exoplanets using transit photometry. The array of robotic telescopes aims to survey the entire sky, simultaneously monitoring many thousands of stars at an apparent visual magnitude from about 7 to 13.

DENIS J1048−3956 is an exceptionally small, dim ultra-cool red dwarf star about 13.2 light years from Earth in the southern constellation of Antlia, among the stars closest to Earth. This star is very dim with an apparent magnitude of about 17, and will require a telescope with a camera to be seen. It was discovered in 2000 by Xavier Delfosse and Thierry Forveille, with the assistance of nine other astronomers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geneva Observatory</span> Observatory

The Geneva Observatory is an astronomical observatory at Sauverny (CH) in the municipality of Versoix, Canton of Geneva, in Switzerland. It shares its buildings with the astronomy department of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. It has been active in discovering exoplanets, in stellar photometry, modelling stellar evolution, and has been involved in the European Space Agency's Hipparcos, INTEGRAL, Gaia, and Planck missions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST</span> Pair of Belgian optic robotic telescopes

The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) is the corporate name for a pair of Belgian optic robotic telescopes. TRAPPIST–South, which is situated high in the Chilean mountains at ESO's La Silla Observatory, came online in 2010, and TRAPPIST–North situated at the Oukaïmeden Observatory in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, came online in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Next-Generation Transit Survey</span> Ground-based robotic search for exoplanets

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1</span> Ultra-cool red dwarf star in the constellation Aquarius

TRAPPIST-1 is a cool red dwarf star noted for its seven known exoplanets. It lies in the constellation Aquarius about 40.66 light-years away from Earth, with a surface temperature of about 2,566 kelvins. Its radius is slightly larger than Jupiter and it has a mass of about 9% of the Sun. It is estimated to be 7.6 billion years old, making it older than the Solar System. The discovery of the star was first published in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1d</span> Small Venus-like exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1d, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 d, is a small exoplanet, which orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone of the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. The first signs of the planet were announced in 2016, but it wasn't until the following years that more information concerning the probable nature of the planet was obtained. TRAPPIST-1d is the second-least massive planet of the system and is likely to have a compact hydrogen-poor atmosphere similar to Venus, Earth, or Mars. It receives just 4.3% more sunlight than Earth, placing it on the inner edge of the habitable zone. It has about <5% of its mass as a volatile layer, which could consist of atmosphere, oceans, and/or ice layers. A 2018 study by the University of Washington concluded that TRAPPIST-1d might be a Venus-like exoplanet with an uninhabitable atmosphere. The planet is an eyeball planet candidate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1b</span> Rocky exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1b, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 b, is a mainly rocky exoplanet orbiting around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. The planet was detected using the transit method, where a planet dims the host star's light as it passes in front of it. It was first announced on May 2, 2016, and between 2017 and 2018, more studies were able to refine its physical parameters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1c</span> Rocky exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1c, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 c, is a mainly rocky exoplanet orbiting around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. It is the third most massive and third largest planet of the system, with about 131% the mass and 110% the radius of Earth. Its density indicates a primarily rocky composition, and observations by the James Webb Space Telescope announced in 2023 suggests against a thick CO2 atmosphere, however this does not exclude a thick abiotic oxygen-dominated atmosphere as is hypothesized to be common around red dwarf stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ultra-cool dwarf</span> Class-M stars with a temperature below 2,700 K

An ultra-cool dwarf is a stellar or sub-stellar object of spectral class M that has an effective temperature lower than 2,700 K . This category of dwarf stars was introduced in 1997 by J. Davy Kirkpatrick, Todd J. Henry, and Michael J. Irwin. It originally included very low mass M-dwarf stars with spectral types of M7 but was later expanded to encompass stars ranging from the coldest known to brown dwarfs as cool as spectral type T6.5. Altogether, ultra-cool dwarves represent about 15% of the astronomical objects in the stellar neighborhood of the Sun. One of the best known examples is TRAPPIST-1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1f</span> Earth-size exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1f, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 f, is an exoplanet, likely rocky, orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1g</span> Earth-size exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1g, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 g and K2-112 g, is an exoplanet orbiting around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. It was one of four new exoplanets to be discovered orbiting the star in 2017 using observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The exoplanet is within the optimistic habitable zone of its host star. It was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1e</span> Earth-size exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1e, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 e, is a rocky, close-to-Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. Astronomers used the transit method to find the exoplanet, a method that measures the dimming of a star when a planet crosses in front of it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TRAPPIST-1h</span> Cold Earth-size exoplanet orbiting TRAPPIST-1

TRAPPIST-1h, also designated as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 h, is an exoplanet orbiting around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, located 40.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. It was one of four new exoplanets to be discovered orbiting the star in 2017 using observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In the following years, more studies were able to refine its physical parameters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASTELCO</span> Telescope manufacturer

The company ASTELCO Systems is a manufacturer of telescopes, telescope control systems, domes/enclosures and related technology for professional astronomical research or public use. ASTELCO is located in Martinsried near Munich and was founded in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K2-315b</span> Warm terrestrial exoplanet orbiting K2-315

K2-315b is an exoplanet located 185.3 light years away from Earth in the southern zodiac constellation Libra. It orbits the red dwarf K2-315.

LP 890-9, also known as SPECULOOS-2 or TOI-4306, is a high proper motion red dwarf star located 105 light-years (32 pc) away from the Solar System in the constellation of Eridanus. The star has 12% the mass and 15% the radius of the Sun, and a temperature of 2,871 K. As of 2022, it is the second-coolest star found to host a planetary system, after TRAPPIST-1.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 "First Light for SPECULOOS - Four telescopes devoted to the search for habitable planets around nearby ultra-cool stars get off to a successful start at ESO's Paranal Observatory". www.eso.org. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
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  7. "Research". SPECULOOS. Archived from the original on 22 May 2017. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
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  11. He, Matthias Y.; Triaud, Amaury H. M. J.; Gillon, Michaël (January 2017). "First limits on the occurrence rate of short-period planets orbiting brown dwarfs". MNRAS. 464 (3): 2687–2697. arXiv: 1609.05053 . Bibcode:2017MNRAS.464.2687H. doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2391. ISSN   0035-8711. S2CID   53692008.
  12. 1 2 3 Burdanov, Artem; Delrez, Laetitia; Gillon, Michaël; Jehin, Emmanuël (2018). "SPECULOOS Exoplanet Search and Its Prototype on TRAPPIST". Handbook of Exoplanets. pp. 1007–1023. arXiv: 1710.03775 . Bibcode:2018haex.bookE.130B. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_130. ISBN   978-3-319-55332-0. S2CID   54016210.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  13. Europa First light!. SPECULOOS. 20/04/2017
  14. Io, Europa’s young brother is installed Archived 2017-12-26 at the Wayback Machine . SPECULOOS. 04/10/2017
  15. "SPECULOOS Southern Observatory".
  16. 1 2 3 Sebastian, D.; Pedersen, P. P.; Murray, C. A.; Ducrot, E.; Garcia, L. J.; Burdanov, A.; Pozuelos, F. J.; Delrez, L.; Wells, R.; Dransfield, G.; Gillon, M. (2021-01-01). "Development of the SPECULOOS exoplanet search project". In Marshall, Heather K; Spyromilio, Jason; Usuda, Tomonori (eds.). Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIII. p. 276. arXiv: 2101.10970 . doi:10.1117/12.2563563. ISBN   9781510636774. S2CID   230550439.
  17. Leleu, A.; Alibert, Y.; Hara, N. C.; Hooton, M. J.; Wilson, T. G.; Robutel, P.; Delisle, J.-B.; Laskar, J.; Hoyer, S.; Lovis, C.; Bryant, E. M. (2021-01-01). "Six transiting planets and a chain of Laplace resonances in TOI-178". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 649: A26. arXiv: 2101.09260 . Bibcode:2021A&A...649A..26L. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202039767. S2CID   231693292.
  18. "SPECULOOS discovers a potentially habitable super-Earth". University of Liège. 7 September 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
  19. Triaud, Amaury H. M. J.; Burgasser, Adam J.; Burdanov, Artem; Kunovac Hodžić, Vedad; Alonso, Roi; Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella; Delrez, Laetitia; Demory, Brice-Olivier; de Wit, Julien; Ducrot, Elsa; Hessman, Frederic V. (January 2020). "An Eclipsing Substellar Binary in a Young Triple System discovered by SPECULOOS". Nature Astronomy. 4 (7): 650–657. arXiv: 2001.07175 . Bibcode:2020NatAs...4..650T. doi:10.1038/s41550-020-1018-2. S2CID   210839528.