SPECULOOS: a network of robotic telescopes to hunt for terrestrial planets around the nearest ultracool dwarfs

Delrez, Laetitia; Gillon, Michaël.; Queloz, Didier; Demory, Brice-Olivier; Almleaky, Yaseen; de Wit, Julien; Jehin, Emmanuël.; Triaud, Amaury H. M. J.; Barkaoui, Khalid; Burdanov, Artem; Burgasser, Adam J.; Ducrot, Elsa; McCormac, James; Murray, Catriona; Silva Fernandes, Catarina; Sohy, Sandrine; Thompson, Samantha J.; Van Grootel, Valérie; Alonso, R.; Benkhaldoun, Zouhair; Rebolo, R.
Bibliographical reference

Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 10700, id. 107001I 21 pp. (2018).

Advertised on:
7
2018
Number of authors
21
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
46
Refereed citations
42
Description
We present here SPECULOOS, a new exoplanet transit search based on a network of 1m-class robotic telescopes targeting the 1200 ultracool (spectral type M7 and later) dwarfs bright enough in the infrared (K-mag <= 12.5) to possibly enable the atmospheric characterization of temperate terrestrial planets with next-generation facilities like the James Webb Space Telescope. The ultimate goals of the project are to reveal the frequency of temperate terrestrial planets around the lowest-mass stars and brown dwarfs, to probe the diversity of their bulk compositions, atmospheres and surface conditions, and to assess their potential habitability.
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