Events on Thursday, July 24th, 2025
- The Ursa Major Moving Group: Membership, Age, and Planet Search
- Time: 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
- Place: B343 Sterling or
- Speaker: Julia Sheffler, Physics PhD Graduate Student
- Abstract: Since the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1992, the number of confirmed exoplanets has grown to nearly six thousand with more than seven thousand candidates awaiting confirmation. The rapidly increasing quantity of known exoplanets allows scientists to shift their focus from exoplanet discovery to deeper characterization and population studies. Of particular interest are populations of planets with known and, especially, young ages. The challenges associated with estimating ages of individual stars limits the existence of accurate age estimates for the majority of confirmed planets. By concentrating on stars within moving groups or clusters, we overcome many of these challenges, opening up a variety of independent age diagnostics. We focus on Ursa Major (UMa), a young (~400Myr), nearby (~25pc) moving group. We perform a volume limited kinematic membership analysis, provide more accurate and precise age estimates, and, in time, search for planets among UMa stars. Increasing our population of exoplanets with known ages less than 500 Myr, with proximity making them amenable to follow-up observations, provides critical data for understanding planetary evolution at early timescales.
- Host: Melinda Soares-Furtado