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    • Science
    • Community Engagement
    • Research Group
    • Curriculum Vitae
  • Science
  • Community Engagement
  • Research Group
  • Curriculum Vitae

Astronomer

Dr. Arpita Roy

Dr. Arpita RoyDr. Arpita RoyDr. Arpita Roy
Space Telescope Science Institute

Astronomer

Dr. Arpita Roy

Dr. Arpita RoyDr. Arpita RoyDr. Arpita Roy
Space Telescope Science Institute

About Me

I am on the hunt for planets, big and small, beyond our Solar System.

For centuries, the idea of worlds around other stars lived in the realms of philosophy and science fiction. Then about three decades ago, technological advancement aligned with some of mankind's oldest and most compelling questions to give birth to exoplanet science. Today we are counting these distant planets in the thousands, and starting to probe their habitability. But at the edge of our scientific capability, the existential questions remain. 


Are there other Earths out there? 


Are we alone?

CV & PUBLICATIONS

How Do I LOOK FOR Planets?


The gravitational pull of orbiting planets causes stars to "wobble" in space. The smaller the planet, the smaller the wobble it imparts. For example, the Earth perturbs the Sun by only 10cm/s.


I am part of multiple groups that are building instruments to measure these incredibly small signatures in starlight created by Earth-like planets. We call this "extreme precision spectroscopy".

SCIENCE SNAPSHOTS

Stellar Activity Mimics a Habitable Zone Planet

Data Reduction Pipelines

A Miniscule Ball Lens To "Scramble" Light

PARAS Detects India's First Exoplanet

Moonlight Contamination In Planet Searches

Stellar Activity

Moon Formation

Combining RV + Astrometry

Stars Masquerading as Planets in MARVELS-1b

Instrumentation

James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope

I am an instrument scientist for JWST at STScI. JWST is NASA's upcoming flagship mission, and will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. I am working on the commissioning of the NIRISS instrument, and exoplanet science with JWST.

Keck Planet Finder

James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope

I am the Project Scientist and Data Pipeline Lead for KPF. Combining large aperture and extreme precision, KPF will be an ultra-stable spectrograph on the 10m Keck-I telescope in Hawaii. KPF is scheduled for delivery in mid-2022 with science commencement by 2023.

NEID

James Webb Space Telescope

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

I am an architect of NEID. The centerpiece of a NASA-NSF collaboration, NEID is an extreme precision optical spectrograph on the 3.5m WIYN telescope in Arizona. Having recently passed Operations Readiness Review, NEID is now available for science through NOIRLab.

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

I am an architect of HPF, a precision near-infrared spectrograph on the 10m Hobby Eberly Telescope in Texas, producing some of the best NIR RV performance achieved on sky.

PARAS

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

SALT HRS

I am an architect of PARAS, a high-precision optical spectrograph on a 1.2m telescope in Mt. Abu, India, operating since 2010.  It is able to achieve ~1m/s precision on sky, and led to the discovery of India’s first exoplanet. 

SALT HRS

Habitable Zone Planet Finder

SALT HRS

I am an advisor for SALT HRS. The High Resolution Spectrograph on the 10m South African Large Telescope is an existing instrument that has great potential for exoplanet hunting in the Southern Hemisphere.

Contact Me

Email

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