The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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David Charbonneau

Center for Astrophysics

Professor of Astronomy, Astronomer

David Charbonneau

dcharbonneau@cfa.harvard.edu

About

My research goals are to detect and characterize planets orbiting other stars; these worlds are known as exoplanets. I am fascinated by planets in edge-on orbits, such that the planet periodically passes in front of its star. These systems offer unparalleled opportunities to determine the properties of the planet and its atmosphere. I am currently focusing my efforts on terrestrial exoplanets, worlds that are primarily composed of rock and iron, and which may possess thin atmospheres like that of the Earth. I am also engaged in the physics of low-mass stars, and seek to understand how they generate magnetic fields and how they spin down with time.

I lead the MEarth Project, I am a co-investigator in the NASA TESS Mission and the HARPS-N Project, and I am engaged in the conversion of the 1.3m telescope into an automated ultra-precise photometer. I recently co-chaired the National Academies' Exoplanet Science Strategy, which described a national strategy for the study of exoplanets and the search for life upon them.

PhD Astronomy, Harvard University (2001)

Telescopes and Instruments

1.5-meter Tillinghast (60-inch) Telescope

The 1.5-Meter (60 Inch) Tillinghast Telescope is a general purpose visible-light telescope located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona, operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Astronomers use this telescope to measure the spectrum of light emitted by a wide variety of objects in the Solar System, the Milky Way, and in distant galaxies.

CfA Operated (OIR) | Open to CfA Scientists | Active

Visit the 1.5 Meter (60 Inch) Tillinghast Telescope Website

Magellan Telescopes

The twin Magellan Telescopes in Chile are each 6.5 meter optical telescopes. These telescopes are both equipped with instruments to take images and spectra of light from a wide variety of astronomical sources, including exoplanet systems, star-forming regions, supernova remnants, and interacting galaxies. The Magellan Telescopes — named Baade and Clay — are hosted at the Las Campanas Observatory and are operated by a consortium of institutions, including the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Carnegie Institution for Science, University of Arizona, the University of Michigan, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, CfA scientists and engineers provided a wide field f/5 focal system (including secondary mirror and corrective optics), and a powerful astronomical camera for use at the Clay telescope.

Visit the Magellan Telescopes Website

Giant Magellan Telescope

Is Earth unique, or are there other planets with life in the Milky Way? To answer this question and many others, astronomers need larger and more sensitive observatories than anything we currently have. For that reason, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is collaborating with a number of other institutions around the world to create the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), currently under construction in Chile. The GMT will consist of seven large mirrors acting in concert as one giant telescope 80 feet across. That large size provides an unprecedented view of the sky and the ability to detect the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. Like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the GMT will be a powerful tool across the field of astronomy, providing insights into the formation of planets, the structure of galaxies, and the evolution of the universe itself.

Visit the GMT Website

1.2 Meter (48-inch) Telescope

The 1.2-Meter (48 Inch) Telescope is a general purpose visible-light telescope located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO), a major observational facility of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian located in southern Arizona. Astronomers use this telescope to observe objects in the Solar System and the Milky Way, as well as other galaxies, including the supermassive black holes known as quasars. Astronomers also use the 1.2-Meter Telescope to observe star systems that might contain exoplanets, which is a major program for the observatory.

Visit the 1.2-Meter (48 Inch) Telescope Website

MEarth

How many Earth-sized planets are out there? How many of those might support life? Answering these questions is complicated because Earth-like worlds are small, making them hard to detect. The MEarth Project — pronounced “mirth” — simplifies the problem by looking for planets orbiting small, red M dwarf stars. Potentially habitable Earth-sized planets have smaller orbits around these stars than yellow Sun-like stars, allowing MEarth to identify them. The MEarth telescopes are operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and located at the CfA’s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in Arizona and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. Astronomers have used MEarth to identify multiple planets, including the rocky planet GJ1132b.

Visit the MEarth Website

Kepler/K2

Since the early 1990s, astronomers have identified thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Most of those identifications have come thanks to one observatory: NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Until it lost its ability to point, Kepler observed a region of the sky containing about 150,000 stars with potential planets, monitoring them for the slight decrease in light caused by planets crossing in front of the star. After the spacecraft’s pointing control failed, the mission was renamed K2, and it continued to hunt for exoplanets as it tumbled slowly, with its field of view drifting slowly across the sky. The mission finally ended in 2018, though the data it produced continues to provide astronomers with valuable information about planets in our galactic neighborhood. Astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian were responsible for the preparation of the catalog for potentially interesting stars, and have participated extensively in follow-up observations of Kepler planetary discoveries.

Visit the Kepler/K2 Website

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Extrapolating from that knowledge, the Milky Way alone is probably home to hundreds of billions of planets, many of which are likely rocky, Earth-like worlds. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space observatory designed to look for exoplanets in orbit around 200,000 nearby bright stars, with a particular interest in identifying small planets. Astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian are part of the scientific team to analyze TESS data, as well as performing follow-up observations. The relative closeness of worlds in the TESS survey will allow astronomers to even study some of their atmospheres, using the future Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and other observatories. TESS observational program is complementary to NASA’s long-running Kepler/K2 mission, and could identify as many as 20,000 new exoplanet orbiting a wide variety of star types.

Visit the TESS Website

High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher-North (HARPS-N)

Measuring the mass of a distant exoplanet requires tracking the changes in light of the host star as the planet’s gravity tugs it slightly — a delicate process. The High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher for the Northern hemisphere (HARPS-N) is an instrument designed for that purpose. HARPS-N is installed on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The instrument provides valuable follow-up observations for the smaller exoplanets identified by NASA’s Kepler/K2 space telescope and other observatories. Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian are part of the international collaboration operating the instrument. Using the high quality data from HARPS-N, astronomers hope to measure the masses of Earth-like worlds to sufficient accuracy to determine how much these planets resemble ours.

Visit the HARPS-N Website

1.3 Meter Telescope

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) was an ambitious project to map the entire sky in infrared light, providing a cosmic census of galaxies, star clusters, small Solar System bodies, and many more. 2MASS used two telescopes: the 1.3 Meter Telescope operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona; and an identical instrument operated by the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The survey was concluded in the late 1990s, making the telescope available to CfA astronomers and collaborators for new projects. The telescope was converted to automatic control, and renamed Peters Automated Infrared Imaging Telescope (PAIRITEL), for a program monitoring transient events such as supernovas and gamma-ray bursts. The PAIRITEL project ran from 2003 to 2012. Plans are underway in 2019 to reconfigure the telescope for visible-light measurements to hunt for exoplanets.

Visit the 1.3 Meter Telescope Website