Title: Final Project - Part 2
Course: ASTRON103: The Evolving Universe: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology (001) DHH SU18 > Section: Week 6

Hunt for a New Home

The time has come for us to begin making the steps to leave our beloved Earth. We must find a new planet around another star that can host a new colony of humans and life!

For this project, you will go through the steps of planning for a new exoplanet colony, starting from identifying an ideal stellar type, analyzing their light curves for transiting planets, determining properties of these planets to find a suitable Earth-like counterpart, and planning a journey of first explorers.

This project is slightly different from your previous two in that each week, you will have to complete and submit one new element. In total there will be 4 parts to this project spread out over 4 weeks.

Part 2

This part of the project is due at the end of Week 6 on Sunday, July 29th at 11:59PM.

This week, you will be given follow-up light curve observations for 7 stars that you have hopefully classified and identified as favorable for potentially hosting a future colony of humans. You will need to analyze these light curves and determine which have planets, and derive some basic properties of these planets.

Tasks

1. Download the Stellar light curve data either as a compressed file (here) or view them online via canvas (here).
2. Based on the classification of the star (correct classification provided on the light curve image), estimate the mass and radius of the host star. There are many ways to go about doing this. You should try the two methods highlighted below in i. and ii., but you can also consult other resources to find tables and more direct results for different types of stars.
  1. The Mass can be estimated using the Mass-Luminosity Relation as discussed in Astronomy Chapter 18.2 (an example calculation from this chapter is also below as Figure 1). You should be able to estimate the Luminosity of the star from its stellar classification (location on an HR diagram - shown in Figure 2).
  2. The Radius can be estimated using the chart below (as Figure 3) taken from Astronomy Chapter 18.4 (you can also check on your mass estimate using this). You can (and are encouraged to) use other resources to help you make these estimates - including finding other real examples of stars of the same type and luminosity class.
3. Analyze each light curve following the method described in Astronomy Chapter 21.4 (an example calculation from this chapter is also below as Figure 4)
4. Using Kepler's Law, derive the semi-major axis of the planet (if there is one around the star).
5. Derive an estimate of the orbital velocity of the planet by considering its orbit around the host star (consider a circular orbit with a radius equal to the semi-major axis).
6. Submit your derived parameters and show your work in the web form here.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4