IRVEES: Transiting Exoplanet Moon Search (TEMS)

[ProtoJeb21]

TEMS (Transiting Exoplanet Moon Search)

One of the main goals of the IRVEES program is to not just find exoplanets, but also exomoons. The hunt for moons of exoplanets has not gone very well. There's a group called HEK (Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler) that tries to find Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) caused by an orbiting exomoon. So far, they haven't found any. But that doesn't mean this method isn't successful; it's just the target's sizes and differences. Most of HEK's targets are either hundreds of light years away, or have dim host stars, or are rather small exoplanets. I plan to take on that challenge.

With TEMS (Transiting Exoplanet Moon Search), not just any planets are selected. They first have to pass at least 2 of these three Checkpoints that will determine if they may have a moon and if it can be detected:

1. Is it close enough to Earth?
2. Can it easily be detected by the transit method?
3. Is its host star brighter than magnitude 15.5?

Distance from the planet system to Earth is the most flexible of the Checkpoints because of how the other two affect it. If the system's star is over 1,000 light-years away but the star is brighter than magnitude 15.5 and the planet can easily be spotted, then the distance can be up to 3,000 light-years. However, to make TEMS results as clear as possible, systems within 1,000 light-years should be considered. A good system is 55 Cancri A (Copernicus).

Next is how well the planet can be detected. A small planet orbiting a large star can slip through the imaging software on some telescopes, making TTVs impossible to find. But a planet that can be detected with a minimum scope of 10-15" is a good choice for TEMS. Finally is the star's brightness. A dim star doesn't have a huge effect on TEMS, but a target system that can't be seen is a huge issue. 

Now that those Checkpoints are out of the way, there is one other thing that needs to be considered: whether or not a target planet can even have a moon. To find out if a moon can be stable around the planet for at least 0.6 billion years, I would have to use Universe Sandbox 2. If the moon is destroyed or ejected withing 0.6-1 billion years, then the target planet will no longer be a target.

Target Exoplanets:

• Ourania (Kepler-11g)
• Kepler-443b
• Aristaios (Kepler-452b)
• Hubal (WASP-14 Ab)
• HAT-P-2b

Potential Targets:

• Kepler-18d
• Kepler-32d
• Kepler-37d
• Kepler-89e
• Kepler-14b

In order for a moon to be confirmed, the TTVs must be very small and happen "randomly." Since the planet's year and the moon's orbital period won't be the same, the TTVs would seem to be random. However, I will probably update this with a better confirmation method.

Candidate Exomoons:

None ATM

Confirmed Exomoons:

None ATM

People can help participate in TEMS if they want to. All they would need to do is review the timing of each transit, if there is a huge amount of data to work with. Several people may need to go over 1 data set if multiple planetary transits were observed.

Members:

@ProtoJeb21 (Me)

@kunok

Potential Members:

@Spaceception

@RocketSquid

@OrbitalBuzzsaw

The schedule of TEMS will be very similar to the regular IRVEES schedule. Also, I may try to look for moons of my own planets.

Schedule:

• June 14th: Observations of HAT-P-22b starting at 22:37 UST; Getting used to equipment and collecting first data set to find a possible moon to this planet.

 

*Note: Kepler-32d's host star is magnitude 15.1. That may be too low to be a target system of TEMS.

Edited June 23, 2016 by ProtoJeb21
Edits to surveys

[Spaceception]

@ProtoJeb21 Would gliese 876 be a target? It's a red dwarf, yes, but it has two gas giants are in the habitable zone, 1 larger than Jupiter, and it's 15.2 ly away.

Also, I've heard that testing in US2 isn't very reliable, especially for long times, so you'd probably need to double check with a scientist.

Count me as an temporary supporter, until, of course, I get the right equipment

[ProtoJeb21]

On 6/5/2016 at 6:31 PM, Spaceception said:

@ProtoJeb21 Would gliese 876 be a target? It's a red dwarf, yes, but it has two gas giants are in the habitable zone, 1 larger than Jupiter, and it's 15.2 ly away.

Also, I've heard that testing in US2 isn't very reliable, especially for long times, so you'd probably need to double check with a scientist.

Count me as an temporary supporter, until, of course, I get the right equipment

I'm only targeting transiting exoplanets because there are more of them and they are much easier to analyse than planets found by radial velocity. But when I get better with doppler spectroscopy, I'll give Gliese 876 b a shot.

Also, I did some simulations and number crunching on a few targets and some other planets not listed in the OP. Janssen cannot work, Kepler-11g (Ourania) can hold multiple moons larger than Tethys, WASP-14b (Hubal) and Kepler-14b has large enough Hills Spheres, Kepler-452b (Aristaios) may have a Luna-like moon with some captured asteroids, and Kepler-251d could have a binary companion.

Keep in mind that even though Kepler-251d has a large Hills Sphere (512,686.22 kilometers), a binary companion can only be created by very specific events early in the planet's history. Kepler-251d would have to have formed with a radius larger than 3.5 Earths and be hit by a forming rocky planet with at least 1.9 Earth Radii. The collision from these two bodies would have blown off much of Kepler-251d's H/He envelope and formed a debris disk large enough for a binary companion. I did the math, and a binary companion formed from this event would have 1.25 Earth radii, 1.3 Earth masses, a density of 4.59 g/cubic cm, and 4% more gravity than Earth. A moon this big should be detected with TTVs and may cause a double transit. But I'll need two transit sets to confirm this: one from 6/14/16 starting at 21:15 UST, and the other from 7/15/16 starting at 00:27 UST. 

(I got a lot of this data, including the times of the transits, from the android app "Exoplanets." Highly recommended!)

[RocketSquid]

I clicked the wrong button. I'm not really sure if my school schedule will leave me with enough time. Put me down as "possibly".

[kunok]

I want to collaborate, other thing is I would get time.

Is this easy to do in the office when the boss is not looking?

But maybe you are making too many campaigns. You should at least somewhat centralize the info. Maybe some kind of calendar thread?

[ProtoJeb21]

21 hours ago, kunok said:

I want to collaborate, other thing is I would get time.

Is this easy to do in the office when the boss is not looking?

But maybe you are making too many campaigns. You should at least somewhat centralize the info. Maybe some kind of calendar thread?

If you don't have time to look through the stellar light curves, I won't press you

Also, I'm doing multiple threads so that information from different parts of IRVEES doesn't get jumbled and mixed up. Data about exomoons stays on the TEMS thread, while the data for my candidate and confirmed planets stays on the main IRVEES thread. I may or may not create a thread about my discovered planets and moons, or extrasolar candidates.

[ProtoJeb21]

I watched Slooh's live stream about exoplanets, and I got a new idea for TEMS.

In the middle of the live stream, Paul Cox was talking to Michelle Kunimoto about whether or not she would try to find moons of KOI-408.05. Michelle said she would try to find a double-dip transit by lowering the Kepler detection program's limit far below what is used to detect planets. Should I try this strategy with known exoplanets including those found by Kepler? I'll have a poll for people to vote on this.