117 search results for “exoplanets” in the Public website
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Spectroscopic characterization of exoplanets: From LOUPE to SINFONI
Over the past years it has been discovered that the population of extra-solar planets is large and diverse.
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High-contrast spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres
More than 5,000 exoplanets have been found over the past couple of decades. These exoplanets show a tremendous diversity, ranging from scorching hot Jupiters, common super-Earths, to widely separated super-Jupiters on the planet/brown dwarf boundary.
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High-resolution integral-field spectroscopy of exoplanets
This thesis describes the implementation and on-sky demonstration of high-resolution integral-field spectroscopy for extreme adaptive optics systems that are used to find and characterize exoplanets.
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Exo-planets, star and planet formation
At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars, which are called exo-planets. They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems.…
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Exo-planets, star and planet formation
At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars (exoplanets). They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems. This way they address…
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Don't Blink: Detecting transiting exoplanets with MASCARA
This thesis describes the Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA (MASCARA), which consists of two small robotic telescope designed to detect exoplanets around the brightest stars in the sky.
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High-contrast imaging polarimetry of exoplanets and circumstellar disks
Understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems is one of the most fundamental challenges in astronomy. To directly image and study young exoplanets and the circumstellar disks they form from, dedicated high-contrast imaging instruments are built.
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Novel approaches for direct exoplanet imaging: theory, simulations and experiments
The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments on space-based observatories requires sophisticated wavefront sensing and control in addition to a high-performance coronagraph.
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Pushing the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres down to temperate rocky planets in the era of JWST
One of the key discoveries in exoplanet research over the past decade is the abundance of small planets in our Milky Way. Despite their high numbers, our understanding of their atmospheres remains limited, and it is unknown if they possess atmospheres at all.
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Focal-plane wavefront sensors for direct exoplanet imaging: Theory, simulations and on-sky demonstrations
One of the key limitations of the direct imaging of exoplanets at small angular separations are quasi-static speckles that originate from evolving non-common path aberrations (NCPA) to which the primary adaptive optics system is inherently blind. The main focus of this thesis is the development and…
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light curves: adaptive optics microscopy and peculiar transiting exoplanets
Promotores: Prof.dr. C.U. Keller, Prof.dr. H.C. Gerritsen
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Imaging polarimetry for the characterisation of exoplanets and protoplanetary discs. Scientific and technical challenges
Promotor: C.U. Keller, Co-Promotor: F. Snik
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a Sea of Starlight: Enabling technology for the direct imaging of exoplanets
Promotor: Christoph U. Keller, Co-promotores: Matthew A. Kenworthy, Frans Snik
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with starlight : optical techniques for the high-contrast imaging of exoplanets
This thesis describes the development and validation of new high-contrast imaging techniques, with the ultimate goal of enabling the next generation of instruments for ELT-class telescopes to directly image Earth-like extra-solar planets orbiting around nearby stars.
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Superstorm on exoplanet
Dutch astronomers have measured a superstorm for the first time in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, the well-studied “hot Jupiter” HD209458b. The very high-precision observations of carbon monoxide gas show that it is streaming at enormous speed from the extremely hot day side to the cooler night side…
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patterned liquid-crystal phase plates to facilitate characterization of exoplanets
This thesis aims to demonstrate how the achromatic nature and design flexibility of liquid-crystal optics can be used to improve high-contrast imaging instruments to facilitate detailed exoplanet characterization.
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Dutch ‘big data’ telescope finds exoplanets
Astronomers at Leiden University have discovered the first planets using a new instrument: the planet hunter MASCARA. This instrument, developed at Leiden Observatory, looks specifically for planet transitions around the brightest stars in the sky, which surprisingly enough have so far have hardly been…
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Astronomers finally measure polarised light from exoplanet
An international team led by Leiden astronomers has, after years of searching and defying the boundaries of a telescope, for the first time directly captured polarised light from an exoplanet. From this light they can deduct that a disk of dust and gas orbits the exoplanet. In this disk moons are possibly…
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Auroras on nineteen stars hint at hidden exoplanets
An international team of scientists including Leiden's Joe Callingham has discovered nineteen red dwarf stars that unexpectedly emit radio waves. The outbursts possibly originate from interaction with exoplanets. The results of the research appear in two scientific publications.
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Webb detects carbon dioxide in exoplanet atmosphere
The James Webb Space Telescope has found evidence of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere of a giant planet 700 light years away. This result provides insight into the composition and formation of this gas giant and shows what James Webb is capable of. The research by the international group of astronomers,…
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Incentive for research on exoplanets and free will
Two Leiden scientists - Ignas Snellen and Bernhard Hommel - have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. The grant will fund their research over the coming five years on exoplanets and free will.
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Giant rings orbit wrong way around exoplanet
Researchers from Japan and the Netherlands who were previously involved in the discovery of an exoplanet with huge rings have now calculated that the giant rings may persist more than 100,000 years, as long as the rings orbit in the opposite direction to that of the planet around the star. Their findings…
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Gigantic ring system discovered around exoplanet J1407b
Astronomers from the Leiden Observatory and from the University of Rochester (in the US) have discovered that the planetary ring system that covered the very young sun-like star J1407 is actually of enormous proportions. In fact, it’s much larger and heavier than the ring system surrounding Saturn.…
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Atmospheres of hot alien Worlds
Promotor: Prof.dr. I.A.G. Snellen, C.U. Keller
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Lava worlds: characterising atmospheres of impossible nature
Over the last three decades, the discovery of exoplanets has revealed the boundless variety of worlds beyond our own Solar System. Majority of planetary systems contain short-period planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
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First measurement of isotopes in atmosphere of exoplanet
An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.
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LOFAR pioneers new way to study exoplanet environments
Using the Dutch-led Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope, astronomers have discovered unusual radio waves coming from the nearby red dwarf star GJ1151. The radio waves bear the tell-tale signature of aurorae caused by an interaction between a star and its planet. The radio emission from a star-planet…
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Two temperate Earth-mass planet candidates around Teegarden’s Star
Leiden University has participated in an international study carried out by the CARMENES consortium, which has discovered two small, terrestrial planets around Teegarden’s Star. The planets have masses similar to Earth and their temperatures could be mild enough to sustain liquid water on their surf…
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From midplane to planets : the chemical fingerprint of a disk
This thesis addresses the chemical processes that determine the compositions of giant planet atmospheres.
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Spinning worlds
Promotor: I. A. G. Snellen, Co-promotor: M. A. Kenworthy
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The mysteries of exoplanets and supermassive black holes: two Vici grants for Leiden Observatory
One unravels the origin of the largest black holes in the universe, the other investigates the influence of stellar wind on the atmosphere of exoplanets. Both Elena Maria Rossi and Aline Vidotto receive a Vici grant for their research into the mysteries of the universe. ‘I have no idea yet how we can…
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Isotopes and the characterization of extrasolar planets
Diverse types of exoplanets such as gas giants on close-in orbits (hot Jupiters) and young massive giants on wide orbits (super Jupiters), with no analogs in the Solar System, pose challenges but also opportunities to our understanding of planet formation and evolution.
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Mining the kinematics of discs to hunt for planets in formation
Detecting planets during their formation stages is crucial for understanding the history and diversity of fully developed planetary systems like our own. However, observing young planets directly is challenging because they are often deeply embedded within their host protoplanetary discs, rich in gas…
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Young suns and infant planets: Probing the origins of solar systems
Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES).
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Oort Lecturer 2018: James Kasting about the search for life on planets around other stars
If there is life outside our galaxy, how could we find it? In his Oort Lecture, James Kasting talks about his search for simple life on other planets. Kasting was in the Netherlands for two weeks, because he was invited as the Oort Professor 2018.
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Inferno Worlds
A remarkable population of short period transiting rocky exoplanets with equilibrium temperatures on the order of 2,000 K has recently been discovered.
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Extrasolar Planet Detection Through Spatially Resolved Observations
Promotor: Prof. dr. I. Snellen, Co-Promotor: Dr. M. Kenworthy
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Searching for life in the Universe
Is there extra-terrestrial life out there? It now looks as though we can sketch out an answer to this enduring question. Leiden Observatory is helping to build new instruments to find the most promising exoplanets.
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Predicting the future: Predictive control for astronomical adaptive optics
The field of exoplanet research is rapidly advancing through the development of new technology, observing techniques, and post-processing methods.
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Exploring the interactions of M dwarf winds and cosmic rays
This thesis focus on the interaction between M dwarf stellar winds and Galactic cosmic rays and the possible effects on the habitability of exoplanets.
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Exploring strange new worlds with high-dispersion spectroscopy
Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…
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Research
Research at Leiden Observatory spans the full width of modern astrophysical enquiry. It is based on observation, theory, simulation, and experiment. Two broad clusters characterize the ongoing research. Within each theme, researchers carry out their personal and specialized research programme. The two…
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Colliding magnetic fields reveal unknown planets
Northern lights, stellar winds and exoplanets. This is what astronomer's PhD research revolved around. PhD candidate astronomer Rob Kavanagh developed mathematical models to better understand the interactions between exoplanets and stellar winds and to define features of exoplanets. He will receive…
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Leiden Observatory
With each discovery that is made, the universe reveals a fraction of its secrets: the most distant galaxies and quasars, the atmosphere of exoplanets, evidence of dark matter, complex molecules in space. This is what fills the days and nights of the researchers from the Leiden Observatory and their…
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About the programme
Within the two-year Astronomy master’s programme, you can choose from seven specialisations, ranging from fundamental or applied astronomy research in cosmology, instrumentation or data science, to combinations of astronomy research with education, management or science communication.
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Capturing polarised light in the search for alien plants
A new way to decipher the light from distant worlds could give us unmistakable evidence of extraterrestrial photosynthesis, and maybe alien plants, finds astronomy author Colin Stuart in the New Scientist. In his article, he describes the work of the group led by Leiden astronomer Rob van Holstein.…
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Dies Natalis
On 8 February 2024 Leiden University celebrated its 449th anniversary.
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From grains to planetesimals: the microphysics of dust coagulation
Promotor: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)
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David Doelman
Science
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TOP grant for four of Leiden’s top scientists
Four scientists will receive the TOP grant for Physical Sciences from the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). They are astronomer Ignas Snellen, mathematicians Tim van Erven and Charlene Kalle and computer scientist Siegfried Nijssen. The funds will be used to finance temporary research…