Peter Plavchan, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy, and his collaborators are using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) iSHELL spectrometer to confirm and measure masses of planets discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.
The TESS mission was launched April 18, 2018 and scientists expect they will discover more than 20,000 transiting exoplanets, including 500 to 1,000 Earth-sized planets and super-Earths, over its course. Of those discoveries, an estimated 20 could be super-Earths located in the habitable zone around a star.
Plavchan received $163,573 from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for this research. Funding began in January 2020 and will conclude in late December 2022.
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