Debra Fischer is leading a search for small rocky planets orbiting alpha Cen A and B using the 1.5-m CTIO telescope in Chile. Simulations by Guedes et al. (2008) show that planets similar to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, could survive the binary star environment. However, the detection of such small planets will require more observations than the average star on exoplanet surveys; co-I Greg Laughlin estimates that 100,000 observations will be needed to draw out the signal from earth-like planets. The first 7,000 observations were obtained during summer 2008.
Co-Investigators:
Geoff Marcy, UC Berkeley
Collaborators:
Andrei Tokovinin, CTIO
Sarbani Basu, Yale University
Tim Bedding, Sydney Institute for Astronomy
Hans Kjeldsen, Aarhus Universitet
Philipe Thebault l'Observatoire Paris and Stockholm Observatory
More Information
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The feature article in SEED Magazine about the Alpha Cen Project.
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An article in The Washington Post about Alpha Cen.
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An article about the mission from the Daily Mail.
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An article about the mission from Science Daily.
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The ADS page where you can find the paper by Guedes et al.
Acknowledgements: We wish to thank the National Science Foundation for support of this project:
