FLASH Talks: Sean O'Brien (QUB) & TBA


Friday, 11 October 2024 noon — 1 p.m. MST

NOIRLab Headquarters | 950 North Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719

FLASH Talks
Sean O'Brien (QUB) & TBA ()

Sean O'Brien (Queen's University at Belfast)
Planet Hunters NGTS: No Planet Left Behind in the Next Generation Transit Survey

Planet Hunters NGTS enlists public volunteers to search for exoplanet transits in data from the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). NGTS is an array of twelve 20-cm telescopes at Paranal Observatory that have produced a rich dataset to search for transiting exoplanets. Since October 2021, volunteers have submitted over 5 million classifications for nearly 300,000 NGTS light curves. Volunteers classify the shape of transit-like features in the phase-folded lightcurves presented, then their assessments are combined through a weighting scheme to select the most promising candidates for further vetting and follow-up observations. 

I will present the most interesting planet candidates discovered by the project, some of which present challenges to our understanding of planet formation theory as they occupy underpopulated regions of parameter space. These candidates have not been previously identified through the NGTS internal vetting process, nor have they been identified as TESS Objects of Interest. I will describe the follow-up observations obtained so far for these candidates, including the crucial Zorro and GHOST data that have unravelled mysteries surrounding some of these objects.

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