{"id":11568,"date":"2017-02-14T05:41:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T05:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=11568"},"modified":"2017-02-14T05:41:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T05:41:30","slug":"scientists-make-huge-dataset-nearby-stars-available-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/scientists-make-huge-dataset-nearby-stars-available-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists make huge dataset of nearby stars available to public"},"content":{"rendered":"

Users can search database of 1,600 stars to find signs of new exoplanets.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\u201cThere seems to be no shortage of exoplanets,\u201d says Jennifer Burt, a Torres postdoctoral fellow in MIT\u2019s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. \u201cThere are a ton of them out there, and a ton of science to be done.\u201d
Image: Ricardo Ramirez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0The search for planets beyond our solar system is about to gain some new recruits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, a team that includes MIT and is led by the Carnegie Institution for Science has released the largest collection of observations made with a technique called radial velocity, to be used for hunting exoplanets. The huge<\/span> dataset<\/a>, taken over two decades by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, is now available to the public, along with an open-source<\/span> software package<\/a> to process the data and an<\/span> online tutorial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By making the data public and user-friendly, the scientists hope to draw fresh eyes to the observations, which encompass almost 61,000 measurements of more than 1,600 nearby stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an amazing catalog, and we realized there just aren\u2019t enough of us on the team to be doing as much science as could come out of this dataset,\u201d says Jennifer Burt, a Torres Postdoctoral Fellow in MIT\u2019s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to shift toward a more community-oriented idea of how we should do science, so that others can access the data and see something interesting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Burt and her colleagues have outlined some details of the newly available dataset in a paper to appear in The Astrophysical Journal<\/em>. After taking a look through the data themselves, the researchers have detected over 100 potential exoplanets, including one orbiting GJ 411, the fourth-closest star to our solar system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to be no shortage of exoplanets,\u201d Burt says. \u201cThere are a ton of them out there, and there is ton of science to be done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Splitting starlight<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The newly available observations were taken by the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES), an instrument mounted on the Keck Observatory\u2019s 10-meter telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. HIRES is designed to split a star\u2019s incoming light into a rainbow of color components. Scientists can then measure the precise intensity of thousands of color channels, or wavelengths, to determine characteristics of the starlight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early on, scientists found they could use HIRES\u2019 output to estimate a star\u2019s radial velocity \u2014 the very tiny movements a star makes either as a result of its own internal processes or in response to some other, external force. In particular, scientists have found that when a star moves toward and away from Earth in a regular pattern, it can signal the presence of an exoplanet orbiting the star. The planet\u2019s gravity tugs on the star, changing the star\u2019s velocity as the planet moves through its orbit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[HIRES] wasn\u2019t specifically optimized to look for exoplanets,\u201d Burt says. \u201cIt was designed to look at faint galaxies and quasars. However, even before HIRES was installed, our team worked out a technique for making HIRES an effective exoplanet hunter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For two decades, these scientists have pointed HIRES at more than 1,600 \u201cneighborhood\u201d stars, all within a relatively close 100 parsecs, or 325 light years, from Earth. The instrument has recorded almost 61,000 observations, each lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes, depending on how precise the measurements needed to be. With all these data compiled, any given star in the dataset can have several days\u2019, years\u2019, ore even more than a decade\u2019s worth of observations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe recently discovered a six-planet system orbiting a star, which is a big number,\u201d Burt says. \u201cWe don\u2019t often detect systems with more than three to four planets, but we could successfully map out all six in this system because we had over 18 years of data on the host star.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

More eyes on the skies<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Within the newly available dataset, the team has highlighted over 100 stars that are likely to host exoplanets but require closer inspection, either with additional measurements or further analysis of the existing data.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers have, however, confirmed the presence of an exoplanet around GJ 411, which is the fourth-closest star to our solar system and has a mass that is roughly 40 percent that of our sun. The planet has an extremely tight orbit, circling the star in less than 10 days. Burt says that there is a good chance that others, looking through the dataset and combining it with their own observations, may find similarly intriguing candidates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone from the early days of thinking maybe there are five or 10 other planets out there, to realizing almost every star next to us might have a planet,\u201d Burt says.<\/span><\/p>\n

HIRES will continue to record observations of nearby stars in the coming years, and the team plans to periodically update the public dataset with those observations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis dataset will slowly grow, and you\u2019ll be able to go on and search for whatever star you\u2019re interested in and download all the data we\u2019ve ever taken on it. The dataset includes the date, the velocity we measured, the error on that velocity, and measurements of the star\u2019s activity during that observation,\u201d Burt says. \u201cNowadays, with access to public analysis software like Systemic, it\u2019s easy to load the data in and start playing with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, Burt says, the hunt for exoplanets can really take off.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think this opens up possibilities for anyone who wants to do this kind of work, whether you\u2019re an academic or someone in the general public who\u2019s excited about exoplanets,\u201d Burt says. \u201cBecause really, who doesn\u2019t want to discover a planet?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Users can search database of 1,600 stars to find signs of new exoplanets.\u00a0 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0The search for planets beyond our solar system is about to gain some new recruits. Today, a team that includes MIT and is led by the Carnegie Institution for Science has released the largest collection of observations made with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",511,341,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/MIT-Exoplanet-Database_0.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a> Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}