Researchers at The Ohio State University are helping lead the development of an instrument that will transform how astronomers hunt for exoplanets.
Designed to detect the presence of distant worlds by studying tiny color changes in light from the host stars they orbit, iLocater is a next-generation spectrograph that, upon its initial completion next year, will be installed at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) located in Arizona.
Jointly led by Ohio State and The University of Notre Dame, the iLocater team was recently awarded a pair of grants that will significantly bolster iLocater's planned scientific capabilities: a $2.7 million award from the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) as well as $1.6 million from NASA's Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) program.
Grants distributed from the NSF's MRI program typically serve to increase access to multi-user scientific and engineering instrumentation for research and research training, while NASA's APRA program is intended to support efforts to research new technologies and conduct feasibility demonstrations that may enable future science missions.
Overall, this support, which totals $4.3 million, will help improve broader exoplanet research at the LBT and advance iLocater's hardware over the next three years. It will also allow the instrument to make detailed measurements of the sun, said Jonathan Crass, the co-principal investigator of the iLocater program and the instrument scientist in the Imaging Science Laboratory at Ohio State.
"iLocater is really the first optimized instrument of its type," said Crass, who has spent a decade of his career working on the program. "We want to build new instruments with new technology so we can push the boundaries of science."
Under development since 2013, iLocater will be a second-generation instrument for the LBT, whose research impacts span the full range of modern astrophysics. Notably, iLocater will take advantage of the telescope's adaptive optics system to peer past the distorting blur of the Earth's atmosphere to discover and characterize new exoplanets.
"These capabilities will effectively help build a more complete picture of how our solar system compares to other planetary systems in the Milky Way," said Crass. "Bringing this instrument online is a great example of scientific evolution at work."
Expected to last for at least a decade, iLocater will also work in tandem with spectrograph instruments at the Lowell Observatory and the Kitt Peak National Observatory to study the dynamics of our sun, effectively turning single gathered data points such as the sun's wavelengths at different times of the day into a full daytime survey of solar activity.
"Between these three instruments, we'll have a really strong science program and will provide unprecedented simultaneous observations and joined datasets to the research community," said Crass.
One of the ways scientists are looking to ensure iLocater evolves with next-generation technologies is by educating and advising those in the field who are likely to become its caretakers over the course of their careers. To that end, funding from the awards will also strengthen efforts to increase public science outreach and engagement among future researchers, said Crass.
"I really look forward to this being a chance to train students and junior researchers in developing instruments as there are now fewer opportunities in this area than there used to be," he said. "These big science-focused grants inspire people to get involved and think about ways to create something that's capable of solving the science questions we're asking."
Other Ohio State members of the instrument and program team include Richard Pogge, Marshall Johnson, Michael Engelman, Daniel Pappalardo, Christopher Brandon, Jerry Mason and Mark Derwent, Ji Wang and Scott Gaudi.
