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The Korean Astronomical Society (한국천문학회)
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MINERVA: SMALL PLANETS FROM SMALL TELESCOPES

  • WITTENMYER, ROBERT A. (School of Physics and Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Australia) ;
  • JOHNSON, JOHN ASHER (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) ;
  • WRIGHT, JASON (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University) ;
  • MCCRADY, NATE (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Montana) ;
  • SWIFT, JONATHAN (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • BOTTOM, MICHAEL (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • PLAVCHAN, PETER (Department of Physics Astronomy and Materials Science, Missouri State University) ;
  • RIDDLE, REED (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • MUIRHEAD, PHILIP S. (Department of Astronomy, Boston University) ;
  • HERZIG, ERICH (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • MYLES, JUSTIN (Department of Astronomy, Yale University) ;
  • BLAKE, CULLEN H. (The University of Pennsylvania, Department of Physics and Astronomy) ;
  • EASTMAN, JASON (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) ;
  • BEATTY, THOMAS G. (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University) ;
  • LIN, BRIAN (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • ZHAO, MING (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University) ;
  • GARDNER, PAUL (California Institute of Technology) ;
  • FALCO, EMILIO (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) ;
  • CRISWELL, STEPHEN (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) ;
  • NAVA, CHANTANELLE (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Montana) ;
  • ROBINSON, CONNOR (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Montana) ;
  • HEDRICK, RICHARD (PlaneWave Instruments Inc.) ;
  • IVARSEN, KEVIN (PlaneWave Instruments Inc.) ;
  • HJELSTROM, ANNIE (Las Cumbres Global Observatory Telescope) ;
  • VERA, JON DE (Las Cumbres Global Observatory Telescope) ;
  • SZENTGYORGYI, ANDREW (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)
  • Received : 2014.11.30
  • Accepted : 2015.06.30
  • Published : 2015.09.30
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Abstract

The Kepler mission has shown that small planets are extremely common. It is likely that nearly every star in the sky hosts at least one rocky planet. We just need to look hard enough-but this requires vast amounts of telescope time. MINERVA (MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array) is a dedicated exoplanet observatory with the primary goal of discovering rocky, Earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zone of bright, nearby stars. The MINERVA team is a collaboration among UNSW Australia, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Penn State University, University of Montana, and the California Institute of Technology. The four-telescope MINERVA array will be sited at the F.L. Whipple Observatory on Mt Hopkins in Arizona, USA. Full science operations will begin in mid-2015 with all four telescopes and a stabilised spectrograph capable of high-precision Doppler velocity measurements. We will observe ~100 of the nearest, brightest, Sun-like stars every night for at least five years. Detailed simulations of the target list and survey strategy lead us to expect $15{\pm}4$ new low-mass planets.

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