Astronomy 510: Exoplanets
Spring 2023     MW 2:15-3:30pm     Room PA-215 Section 01     Class Number 10349
Prof. William Welsh
Email: wwelsh@sdsu.edu
Office: P-235 Physics Building
Office Hours: Mon and Wed 3:30-4:15, or by appointment
Syllabus in .pdf format

Required Textbooks:
- The Exoplanet Handbook, 2nd Edition, by Michael Perryman (2018; CUP)
- Transiting Exoplanets by Carole Haswell (2010; CUP)
Other books recommended for this course:
+ Exoplanets   edited by Sara Seager (2011; U. Arizona P.)
+ Exoplanet Atmospheres: Physical Processes   by Sara Seager (2010; Princeton U.P.)

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Kepler-453 artwork

  • Homework Assignments
  • Figures
  • Papers and Other Files
  • Data and Term Project files

    51 Peg radial 
velocity curve   artwork of Kepler 35
    Figure captions: Above right: Artist's view of the Kepler-453 circumbinary planet system. (credit: Mark Garlick)
    Above left: The radial velocity curve for 51 Pegasi, from the discovery paper by Mayor & Queloz (1995).
    Right: Artist's rendition of the Kepler-35 CBP system. (credit: Lynette Cooke)

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    Exoplanet Resources:
    NASA Exoplanet Archive   part of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI)
    The Exoplanet Encyclopedia (Exoplanet.eu)
    exoplanets.org and the Exoplanet Orbit Database
    Systemic Console (originally by Greg Laughlin, then updated by Stefano Meschiardi).
    Oklo by Greg Laughlin (it covers planets - interpreted broadly)
    Planet Hunters

    Space-based Exoplanet Missions & Projects:
    CoRoT
    MOST
    GAIA
    ESA's Cheops Mission
    Kepler:
      - MAST Kepler Data
      - Kepler Planet Explorer
      - Kepler Eclipsing Binary Catalog
      - Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium (KASC)
    TESS:
      - TESS Mission website at MIT
      - TESS at Goddard
      - TESS Sectors
      - TESS Input Catalog (TIC) at MAST
      - TASS Data Alerts at MAST
      - ExoFOP-TESS
    JWST:
      - JWST
      - JWST Technical FAQs
      - Webb Science: Planets & Origins of Life

    Some Ground-based Transit Projects:
    MEarth Project
    HATNet Exoplanet Survey
    KELT-North     KELT-South
    SuperWASP
    NGTS: Next-Generation Transit Survey
    STARE

    Some Ground-based Radial Velocity and Microlensing Projects:
    Radial velocity at the University of Geneva
    Univ of California Planet Survey
    Anglo-Australian Planet Search
    microFUN-Planet collaboration

    Pre-Launch Missions:
    ESA's Plato Misssion
    White Paper: Observations of Transiting Exoplanets with JWST
    New Worlds "Starshade" concept

    Some Exoplanet Tools & Information:
    NASA/JPL PlanetQuest
    NASA/JPL New Worlds Atlas
    Time Utilities (by Jason Eastman at Ohio State)
    Kopparapu HZ calculator
    Habitable Zone Gallery
    Planet Habitability Lab
    Circumbinary HZ calculator
    Bin Hab
    Binary Catalog of Exoplanets by R. Schwarz
    Eclipsing Binary Simulator
    Radial Velocity Simulator
    Li Zeng's Planet Model M-R relations
    web sites relevant to extrasolar planets from Exoplanet.eu

    Astronomical Databases and Miscellaneous:
    ADS     ArXiv astro-ph
    SIMBAD     SkyView     MAST
    Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics from Cambridge Univ. Press
    Handbook of Mathematical Functions by Abramowitz and Stegun from the National Bureau of Standards
    SoundCloud Online ToneGenerator for white, pink, and brown noise.

    Go to the SDSU Astronomy Department & Mt.Laguna Observatory

    This page's last major update occured on 2023 Jan 17.