Search Publications
SKYSURF: Constraints on Zodiacal Light and Extragalactic Background Light through Panchromatic HST All-sky Surface-brightness Measurements: II. First Limits on Diffuse Light at 1.25, 1.4, and 1.6 µm
Pirzkal, Nor; Casertano, Stefano; Driver, Simon P. +27 more
We present the first results from the HST Archival Legacy project "SKYSURF." As described in Windhorst et al., SKYSURF utilizes the large HST archive to study the diffuse UV, optical, and near-IR backgrounds and foregrounds in detail. Here, we utilize SKYSURF's first sky-surface-brightness measurements to constrain the level of near-IR diffuse Ext…
ACCESS: Confirmation of a Clear Atmosphere for WASP-96b and a Comparison of Light Curve Detrending Techniques
Nikolov, Nikolay; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Kirk, James +11 more
One of the strongest Na I features was observed in WASP-96b. To confirm this novel detection, we provide a new 475-825 nm transmission spectrum obtained with Magellan/IMACS, which indeed confirms the presence of a broad sodium absorption feature. We find the same result when reanalyzing the 400-825 nm VLT/FORS2 data. We also utilize synthetic data…
Assessing the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite's Yield of Rocky Planets Around Nearby M Dwarfs
Bean, Jacob L.; Brady, Madison T.
Terrestrial planets are easier to detect around M dwarfs than other types of stars, making them promising for next-generation atmospheric characterization studies. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission has greatly increased the number of known M-dwarf planets that we can use to perform population studies, allowing us to explore …
A Transmission Spectrum of the Sub-Earth Planet L98-59 b in 1.1-1.7 µm
Kostov, Veselin B.; Barclay, Thomas; Schlieder, Joshua E. +20 more
With the increasing number of planets discovered by the Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the atmospheric characterization of small exoplanets is accelerating. L98-59 is an M-dwarf hosting a multiplanet system, and so far, four small planets have been confirmed. The innermost planet b is ~15% smaller and ~60% lighter than Earth, and should thus …
Evidence for the Late Arrival of Hot Jupiters in Systems with High Host-star Obliquities
Schlaufman, Kevin C.; Hamer, Jacob H.
It has been shown that hot Jupiters systems with massive, hot stellar primaries exhibit a wide range of stellar obliquities. On the other hand, hot Jupiter systems with low-mass, cool primaries often have stellar obliquities close to zero. Efficient tidal interactions between hot Jupiters and the convective envelopes present in lower-mass main-seq…
The Lingering Death of Periodic Near-Sun Comet 323P/SOHO
Mutchler, Max; Kracht, Rainer; Tholen, David J. +4 more
We observed near-Sun comet 323P/SOHO for the first time using ground and space telescopes. In late 2020 December, the object was recovered at Subaru showing no cometary features on its way to perihelion. However, in our postperihelion observations, it developed a long narrow tail mimicking a disintegrated comet. The ejecta, composed of at least mi…
The TESS Grand Unified Hot Jupiter Survey. I. Ten TESS Planets
Henning, Thomas; Butler, R. Paul; Bieryla, Allyson +69 more
Hot Jupiters-short-period giant planets-were the first extrasolar planets to be discovered, but many questions about their origin remain. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an all-sky search for transiting planets, presents an opportunity to address these questions by constructing a uniform sample of hot Jupiters for demographic …
An Eccentric Brown Dwarf Eclipsing an M dwarf
Cochran, William D.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Monson, Andrew +16 more
We report the discovery of an M = 67 ± 2M J brown dwarf transiting the early M dwarf TOI-2119 on an eccentric orbit (e = 0.3362 ± 0.0005) at an orbital period of 7.200861 ± 0.000005 days. We confirm the brown dwarf nature of the transiting companion using a combination of ground-based and space-based photometry and high-precision veloci…
The Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES) I. Survey Overview, Reduction Pipeline, and Early Results
Muirhead, Philip S.; Theissen, Christopher; Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella C. +9 more
We describe the Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES), a near-infrared photometric search for short-period transiting planets and moons around a sample of 393 spectroscopically confirmed L- and T-type dwarfs. PINES is performed with Boston University's 1.8 m Perkins Telescope Observatory, located on Anderson Mesa, Arizona. We discuss the ob…
Validation and Improvement of the Pan-STARRS Photometric Calibration with the Stellar Color Regression Method
Yuan, Haibo; Xiao, Kai
As one of the best ground-based photometric data set, Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) has been widely used as the reference to calibrate other surveys. In this work, we present an independent validation and recalibration of the PS1 photometry using spectroscopic data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) DR7, and photometri…