The Senate of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) has established the Priority Programme “Exploring the Diversity of Extrasolar Planets” (SPP 1992). The programme is designed to run for six years; the present call invites proposals for the first three-year funding period.
One of the most exciting recent discoveries in astronomy is the existence of a huge variety of extrasolar planets orbiting other stars, including numerous multi-planet systems. Exoplanets can be very different to those found in our Solar System, and range from the so-called “Hot Jupiter” and “mini-Neptune” gas planets to large rocky planets (“super-”Earths). This Priority Program aims to explore such diversity and understand its origins.
The SPP 1992 wants to make substantial contributions to answering the following fundamental questions:
- What does the diversity of exoplanets tell us about their formation processes and the evolution of planets and planetary systems?
- What can we learn about the astrophysical conditions necessary to harbour life and are these conditions common in our Milky Way?
To understand the diversity and complexity of exoplanets requires combined efforts across disciplines, linking observational planet detection and characterization to theory.
Science areas addressed therefore include:
- the detection of exoplanets and observational characterization of their properties (e.g. orbit, mass, radius, atmosphere); and
- the understanding of exoplanet properties and diversity in terms of atmospheres, planetary interiors, habitability, formation and evolution processes.
The major observational data basis for the SPP 1992 will result from national and international ground- and space-based projects with strong German participations, data becoming publicly available during the SPP 1992, and from major observatories.
The SPP 1992 wants to support projects which have a direct relationship to observational exoplanetary data which will become available within the time frame of the SPP 1992, their analysis and/or their scientific interpretation.
A goal of the SPP 1992 is to support cooperations across disciplines and teams.
The review meeting will be held at Berlin – Adlershof. The meeting will start in the evening of February, 22 (approx. 18 o’clock) and will end for the applicants February 23 (around 17 o’clock). Invitations with more information will be send around in beginning of 2017.
For more information see the Call for proposals.