WUNA Lunch Talk:

Jason Wright

Penn State University

MINERVA: Finding Small Planets around Nearby Stars with Penn State's Newest Telescope/MARVELS-1: Lessons in scientific paranoia

June 5

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

I will discuss a new partnership among Penn State, Caltech, and the University of Montana to push the limits of Doppler detection and find the smallest planets orbiting the closest Sun-like stars to Earth — with off-the-shelf equipment!

I will discuss the extraordinary hot Jupiter MARVELS-1 c, which is in a 3:1 resonance with a brown dwarf, exhibits ~10-hour transit timing variations, and challenges all planet formation models... or will I? I will discuss the extensive false positive analysis we subjected this system to, and present some conclusions on the value of a "healthy paranoia" in science.