onsdagen den 18:e januari 2012
torsdagen den 17:e mars 2011
Article in The Astrophysical Journal
An article containing the data and analyses on WASP-12b from my work at RSI has now been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. A preprint is available here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3078
The first author, T. Chan is an undergraduate student at MIT who also did research on exoplanets at The Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research last summer. I'm the second author of the article, a 20 year old swede who hasn't entered college yet. I really appreciate all the help and support I have received throughout this project, and I would especially like to thank Prof. Winn, my RSI research mentor (third author) and Mr. Sanchis-Ojeda (fifth author).
Now, please enjoy reading "The Transit Light Curve project. XIV. Confirmation of Anomalous Radii for the Exoplanets TrES-4b, HAT-P-3b, and WASP-12b" and I hope it will prove useful for future research in the ever-growing field of exoplanets!
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3078
The first author, T. Chan is an undergraduate student at MIT who also did research on exoplanets at The Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research last summer. I'm the second author of the article, a 20 year old swede who hasn't entered college yet. I really appreciate all the help and support I have received throughout this project, and I would especially like to thank Prof. Winn, my RSI research mentor (third author) and Mr. Sanchis-Ojeda (fifth author).
Now, please enjoy reading "The Transit Light Curve project. XIV. Confirmation of Anomalous Radii for the Exoplanets TrES-4b, HAT-P-3b, and WASP-12b" and I hope it will prove useful for future research in the ever-growing field of exoplanets!
tisdagen den 7:e december 2010
RSI Paper
The paper I produced on WASP-12b while at MIT this summer is now available for download (click the link to enjoy):
It's been a great pleasure to work on WASP-12b and exoplanets in general the last two years of my life. I've learned a lot, to say the least, and I'm not lying when I say that these last years have been the best of my life.
It all started when Anders Nyholm, a former student at Rymdgymnasiet, gave a talk in Kiruna on when and how he was the first Scandinavian amateur astronomer to observe an exoplanet (HD209458b). That got me started on the Exoplanet road, and I haven't stopped yet.
In 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, there was an astronomy essay competition in all of the Nordic countries, in which I participated. I had originally planned on using the 12" Meade telescope in the Bengt Hultqvist-Observatory in Kiruna, but the prize of the competition was a trip to the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands and observing time at the Nordic Optical Telescope (2.6m) located there, which would be way more awesome (and meaningful) to use than the 12" in Kiruna, so I used that fact when I wrote my essay; Om sökandet efter nya världar.
I won the competition along with another Swede, a Norwegian girl, a Finnish dude, and an Icelandic young man. Apart from winning the trip and observing time, I also got an asteroid named after me; 12311 ingemyr. While at La Palma we made the proper observations and the conditions were perfect.
Once at home again I reduced the data and performed the analysis. I found that the exoplanet WASP-12b is likely to in fact be the very largest planet known in the Universe so far. The paper I wrote can be found here; New photometric measurements reveals WASP-12b as the largest exoplanet found. This was my "Projektarbete" in the last grade of high school.
I joined the competition Utställningen Unga Forskare, the Swedish National Science and Technology Fair. Since the regional competition in Luleå was cancelled, I went straight to the finals in Stockholm, and there I won the most prestigious prize of them all; a ticket to the Research Science Institute at MIT.
While attending RSI at MIT, I continued to analyze more data on WASP-12b (that just happened to be laying around on some server at Harvard). The conclusions of my high school paper were confirmed by this, and I am now working on getting the whole thing published in a real scientific paper, like the Astrophysical Journal.
If you didn't download it before, here's another link to my RSI paper;
Precise Photometry of Transits and Occultations of the Exoplanet WASP-12b
This is likely the very last post I will ever make on this blog, as it was in the beginning made as a way for me to keep a logbook on my progress regarding my high school project. It's been a good time and it's been very rewarding to me in many, many ways. I would like to thank all of you who have helped me and supported me during this journey. See ya around!
In 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, there was an astronomy essay competition in all of the Nordic countries, in which I participated. I had originally planned on using the 12" Meade telescope in the Bengt Hultqvist-Observatory in Kiruna, but the prize of the competition was a trip to the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands and observing time at the Nordic Optical Telescope (2.6m) located there, which would be way more awesome (and meaningful) to use than the 12" in Kiruna, so I used that fact when I wrote my essay; Om sökandet efter nya världar.
I won the competition along with another Swede, a Norwegian girl, a Finnish dude, and an Icelandic young man. Apart from winning the trip and observing time, I also got an asteroid named after me; 12311 ingemyr. While at La Palma we made the proper observations and the conditions were perfect.
Once at home again I reduced the data and performed the analysis. I found that the exoplanet WASP-12b is likely to in fact be the very largest planet known in the Universe so far. The paper I wrote can be found here; New photometric measurements reveals WASP-12b as the largest exoplanet found. This was my "Projektarbete" in the last grade of high school.
I joined the competition Utställningen Unga Forskare, the Swedish National Science and Technology Fair. Since the regional competition in Luleå was cancelled, I went straight to the finals in Stockholm, and there I won the most prestigious prize of them all; a ticket to the Research Science Institute at MIT.
While attending RSI at MIT, I continued to analyze more data on WASP-12b (that just happened to be laying around on some server at Harvard). The conclusions of my high school paper were confirmed by this, and I am now working on getting the whole thing published in a real scientific paper, like the Astrophysical Journal.
If you didn't download it before, here's another link to my RSI paper;
Precise Photometry of Transits and Occultations of the Exoplanet WASP-12b
This is likely the very last post I will ever make on this blog, as it was in the beginning made as a way for me to keep a logbook on my progress regarding my high school project. It's been a good time and it's been very rewarding to me in many, many ways. I would like to thank all of you who have helped me and supported me during this journey. See ya around!
onsdagen den 26:e maj 2010
WASP-12b is being devoured by its host star!
Hubble has finally taken a look into the special case of WASP-12b. As my (and previous) observations has showed, WASP-12b is bigger than what it physically possible (according to the the models). A new paper by L. Fossati et al. (2010) shows that WASP-12b is so heavily deformed by the strong gravitational interaction (it makes one orbit in little more than one day, so it's extremely close to the star) and irradiance (it has a temperature of over 1500°C at the surface) from the star that it is actually loosing mass to it. This will lead to a situation where the planet is no more, in about 10 million years or so.
This fact was suggested by Li et al. (2010) in February, and it now been confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Using UV spectrography, Hubble found many metals in the atmosphere, including sodium, tin, aluminum, magnesium, manganese, cobalt, iron and ytterbium (named after the Swedish town Ytterby, where it was discovered), and this metal-rich exosphere it actually much larger than the planet itself. Where my observation suggests that the planet has a radius of about 1.87 Jupiter radii, the different parts of the UV spectra (NUVA, NUVB and NUVC) observed by Hubble indicates a radius of 2.69±0.24RJ, 2.18±0.18 RJ and 2.66±0.22 RJ respectively. These elements will be caught in a a tug-of-war between the gravity of the planet and the gravity of the star...and the star will ultimately win. This stream of matter, which originated from the planet, is being absorbed by the star, and judging from the mass of the planet and the density of the stream, WASP-12b has about 10 million years left to say its last words. After that, WASP-12 (the star) is one metal rich planet-eater.
This fact was suggested by Li et al. (2010) in February, and it now been confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Using UV spectrography, Hubble found many metals in the atmosphere, including sodium, tin, aluminum, magnesium, manganese, cobalt, iron and ytterbium (named after the Swedish town Ytterby, where it was discovered), and this metal-rich exosphere it actually much larger than the planet itself. Where my observation suggests that the planet has a radius of about 1.87 Jupiter radii, the different parts of the UV spectra (NUVA, NUVB and NUVC) observed by Hubble indicates a radius of 2.69±0.24RJ, 2.18±0.18 RJ and 2.66±0.22 RJ respectively. These elements will be caught in a a tug-of-war between the gravity of the planet and the gravity of the star...and the star will ultimately win. This stream of matter, which originated from the planet, is being absorbed by the star, and judging from the mass of the planet and the density of the stream, WASP-12b has about 10 million years left to say its last words. After that, WASP-12 (the star) is one metal rich planet-eater.
Might this be the ultimate fate of all Hot Jupiters?
fredagen den 2:e april 2010
I, Rickoid
The Urban Dictionary has this to say about Rickoids:
"Participants of the Research Science Institute, formerly the Rickover Science Institute. Basically, what happens is a bunch of people apply to be part of RSI and get rejected. The leftovers are then called Rickoids."
"Participants of the Research Science Institute, formerly the Rickover Science Institute. Basically, what happens is a bunch of people apply to be part of RSI and get rejected. The leftovers are then called Rickoids."
RSI at MIT
This week I published my findings on WASP-12b in the finals of Utställningen Unga Forskare, the swedish national science fair. About 100 students exhibited about 50 science-related projects. Several interesting lectures were given in the evenings and a field trip to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) was conducted.
At the end of the week, an award ceremony was held to award the most ambiguous projects with diferent scholarships. I, with my project on the properties of WASP-12b, was awarded an invitation to the Research Science Institute (RSI) which will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for six weeks this summer. The official website has this to say about the RSI:
At the end of the week, an award ceremony was held to award the most ambiguous projects with diferent scholarships. I, with my project on the properties of WASP-12b, was awarded an invitation to the Research Science Institute (RSI) which will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for six weeks this summer. The official website has this to say about the RSI:
"Each summer, 80 of the world's most accomplished high school students gather at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the Research Science Institute (RSI). Invited students enjoy a six-week, cost-free program designed to kick-start their careers of leadership in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology.
Participants experience the entire research cycle from start to finish. They read the most current literature in their field, draft and execute a detailed research plan, and deliver conference-style oral and written reports on their findings.
RSI projects are open-ended and relevant, fitting into the larger work of the host laboratory. The experience gives many their first taste of work at the creative edge of science."
Participants experience the entire research cycle from start to finish. They read the most current literature in their field, draft and execute a detailed research plan, and deliver conference-style oral and written reports on their findings.
RSI projects are open-ended and relevant, fitting into the larger work of the host laboratory. The experience gives many their first taste of work at the creative edge of science."
From what I hear, this is one of the most prestigious awards one can receive in the field of science and technology at my age. I will most certainly enjoy the upcoming six weeks at the MIT!
The latest draft of my report
During the last couple of weeks I've been busy writing the project report. If anyone would like to read it, see this link.
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