Stellar contamination of the transmission spectrum of transiting exoplanets is emerging as a major challenge to the detailed atmospheric characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres. We are organizing a workshop to explore the impact of the transit light source effect on transmission spectra around different host stars and identify methods capable of correcting for this contamination.

The workshop will be part of the NExSS Workshops without Walls: an online workshop open to the entire community.

First Results From the Scorpion Planet Survey

By Kevin Wagner Searching for planets outside of our own solar system is one of the great challenges in modern astronomy. The problem consists of measuring the brightness of a planet that is more than a million times fainter than its host star, while being so close to...

UA, ASU teams to search for alien life

Article appeared in the Arizona Daily Star: http://tinyurl.com/nteh6h4 April 22, 2015 7:29 pm  •  By Tom Beal  “I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30...

NExSS Program and EOS Selection Announced

NASA’s NExSS Coalition to Lead Search for Life on Distant Worlds NASA is bringing together experts spanning a variety of scientific fields for an unprecedented initiative dedicated to the search for life on planets outside our solar system. The Nexus for Exoplanet...

Volatile Delivery to Planets around Red Dwarf

EOS team investigators Fred Ciesla, Ilaria Pascucci, and Daniel Apai publish a paper on the delivery of volatiles to low-mass planets orbiting red dwarf stars. The team finds that including more realistic starting conditions (a larger number of planetesimals and...

EOS Postdoctoral Position Opens at U Chicago

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks and primitive materials at the University of Chicago. The successful applicant will work directly with Professor Fred Ciesla and in collaboration with...

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