PICSAT: A space mission dedicated to the transit of Beta Pictoris b

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Sylvestre Lacour (L’Observatoire de Paris, France)
• Tuesday 08 March 2016, 14:00-15:00
• Martin Ryle Seminar Room, Kavli Institute.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Greg Willatt.

In 2003, Beta Pictoris b, a giant planet, was directly imaged around its host star. The orbit was later refined to a period of approximately 18 years. The orbit agrees with a transit coinciding with previous photometric variations in Nov 81. The next transit event is expected end of 2017, with several months of uncertainty. It is a unique opportunity to characterise an exoplanet in its infancy, to constrain its density, mass, and evolutionary models. PICSAT is a nano satellite currently developed with the main goal of observing this transit. It is based on a 3U Cubsat architecture scheduled for a launch around mid-2017. During this talk, I will present the science goals of the mission, as well as the technical issues we are facing.

This talk is part of the Cavendish Astrophysics Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cavendish Astrophysics Seminars
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Combined External Astrophysics Talks DAMTP
• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity
• Featured lists
• ME Seminar
• Martin Ryle Seminar Room, Kavli Institute
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• School of Physical Sciences
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.