Profile

Our planet, Earth, and all of the other planets in our Solar System orbit around our star, the Sun. I look for planets around other stars (which are known as exoplanets) using something called the transit method. This is where we monitor stars for tiny dips in brightness that indicate something small and dark has passed in front of them- a planet!

Image showing how a planet passing in front of a star causes a small dip in the brightness we detect from the star.     (Image from NASA)

By looking at how deep the dip is, we can work out how large the planet is. This is because when we have a big planet, it will block out more of the light from the star it orbits. We find a lot of planets that are about the size of Jupiter which whizz around their stars in only a few days, and we call these ‘Hot Jupiters’. However, we’re really interested in finding smaller planets around these distant stars- maybe even ones like Earth!

The scientific group that I am a part of is called NGTS, which is the name of a telescope in Chile which monitors thousands of stars for these tiny dips. Our goal is to find planets that are smaller than Neptune, and maybe a few that are very slightly larger than the Earth. This is exciting because finding planets that are similar to ours gets us one step closer to understanding life in the Universe! 👽