Detecting Earth-analogs with radial
velocities and photometry

Speaker : Nathan Hara (LAM, Marseille)

Abstract :

Understanding how planets form and searching for life beyond Earth are
two key goals in exoplanet research. To make progress on both fronts, it is
crucial to discover Earth-analogs. However, detecting them is a major
challenge, as their faint signals are difficult to disentangle from
astrophysical and instrumental noise. In this talk, I will present new data
analysis techniques that significantly enhance the detectability of Earth
analogs, and discuss the recent discovery of HD 20794 c, a 5.8M🜨
minimum mass crossing the habitable zone of a nearby star. Additionally, I
will show that the methods developed for exoplanets can benefit other
areas of astronomy—in particular how new stellar variability models open
a new way to perform Doppler imaging.