Speaker
Description
Exoplanet formation and their early evolution is still poorly understood
because of the paucity of known young planets at ages of less than 1 Gyr. Here I present the program YEARS (Young Exoplanet Analysis in Rich Stellar cluster, P.I. Ignazio Pillitteri) that aims at discovering new young exoplanets transiting the stars of the rich southern open cluster NGC 2516. The cluster has an age of about 100 Myr, and it is composed by more than 800 members concentrated within a field of view of about 1 degree. This is a perfect match for the FOV of Omegacam.
The program is designed to acquire sequences of exposures in Sloan 'r' and 'i' bands with OmegaCAM. The outcome of YEARS can increase the number of young exoplanets and allow their characterization of their atmospheres with respect to the effects of stellar activity and star-planet interaction at an age of about 100 Myr.
As a secondary outcome, the light curves will allow characterizing the stellar atmospheres with respect to their short term variability.