Institute of Astronomy

ACCESS: The Arizona-CfA-Catolica Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey

SpeakerTalk DateTalk Series
Mercedes Lopez-Morales28 July 2014Across HR 2014 Posters

Abstract

The Arizona-CfA-Catolica Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey (ACCESS) is an international, multi-institutional consortium with members from the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, the University of Arizona, Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Chile, MIT and UC Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution. The goal of ACCESS is to observe about two dozen planets covering a wide range of mass, radius, atmospheric temperatures and energy irradiation levels, with two main scientific goals: 1) to obtain, for the first time, a uniform sample of visible transmission spectra of exoplanets, allowing the study of their atmospheric characteristics as a statistically significant sample, and 2) to mature the technique of ground-based observations of exoplanetary atmospheres for future observations of small planets. Here we describe ACCESS and its first science results.

Presentation