Jason Thomas Wright
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics | Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, UNITED STATES
Jason Thomas Wright is an expert in nearby stars and their planetary systems.
Industry Expertise (2)
Research
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise (4)
Planetary Systems
Astrophysics
Physics and Astronomy
Stars
Biography
Prof. Wright studies nearby stars, their ages and activity levels, and most of all their planetary systems. He finds and characterizes new planets around other stars using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope and Keck Observatory.
He and his students maintain a list of good orbital parameters from the peer-reviewed literature for planets orbiting other stars at exoplanets.org
Education (3)
University of California, Berkeley: Ph.D. 2006
University of California, Berkeley: M.A. 2003
Boston University: B.A. 1999
Links (3)
Media Appearances (1)
Scientists point to dust rather than aliens as cause of star’s odd behavior
Geek Wire online
2017-10-04
Another astronomer, Penn State’s Jason Wright, mused that the data could be explained by the construction of a huge orbital structure known as a Dyson sphere — although he cautioned that “aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider.”
Articles (5)
Breakthrough Listen–A new search for life in the universe
Acta Astronautica
S Pete Worden, Jamie Drew, Andrew Siemion, Dan Werthimer, David DeBoer, Steve Croft, David MacMahon, Matt Lebofsky, Howard Isaacson, Jack Hickish, Danny Price, Vishal Gajjar, Jason T Wright
2017 On July 20, 2015 Stephen Hawking, Yuri Milner, and Lord Martin Rees announced a new scientific initiative–a SETI search called Breakthrough Listen. This is the first of several privately-funded Breakthrough Initiatives, designed to answer the fundamental science questions surrounding the origin, extent, and nature of life in the universe.
Radial Velocities as an Exoplanet Discovery Method
arXiv preprint
Jason T Wright
2017 The precise radial velocity technique is a cornerstone of exoplanetary astronomy. Astronomers measure Doppler shifts in the star's spectral features, which track the line-of/sight gravitational accelerations of a star caused by the planets orbiting it. The method has its roots in binary star astronomy, and exoplanet detection represents the low-companion-mass limit of that application. This limit requires control of several effects of much greater magnitude than the signal sought: the motion of the telescope must be subtracted, the instrument must be calibrated, and spurious Doppler shifts "jitter" must be mitigated or corrected. Two primary forms of instrumental calibration are the stable spectrograph and absorption cell methods, the former being the path taken for the next generation of spectrographs. Spurious, apparent Doppler shifts due to non-center-of-mass motion (jitter) can be the result of stellar magnetic activity or photospheric motions and granulation. Several avoidance, mitigation, and correction strategies exist, including careful analysis of line shapes and radial velocity wavelength dependence.
Exoplanets and SETI
arXiv preprint
Jason T. Wright
2017 The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding of the prevalence of exoplanets throughout the galaxy have all altered the search strategies of communication SETI efforts, by inspiring new "Schelling points" (i.e. optimal search strategies for beacons). Future efforts to characterize individual planets photometrically and spectroscopically, with imaging and via transit, will also allow for searches for a variety of technosignatures on their surfaces, in their atmospheres, and in orbit around them. In the near-term, searches for new planetary systems might even turn up free-floating megastructures.
Visions of human futures in space and SETI
International Journal of Astrobiology
Jason T Wright, Michael P Oman-Reagan
2017 We discuss how visions for the futures of humanity in space and SETI are intertwined, and are shaped by prior work in the fields and by science fiction. This appears in the language used in the fields, and in the sometimes implicit assumptions made in discussions of them. We give examples from articulations of the so-called Fermi Paradox, discussions of the settlement of the Solar System (in the near future) and the Galaxy (in the far future), and METI. We argue that science fiction, especially the campy variety, is a significant contributor to the ‘giggle factor’ that hinders serious discussion and funding for SETI and Solar System settlement projects. We argue that humanity's long-term future in space will be shaped by our short-term visions for who goes there and how.
Swift X-ray monitoring of stellar coronal variability
AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division
Brendan P Miller, Elena Gallo, Jason Wright, Cedric Hagen
2017 We used California Planet Search Ca II H and K core emission measurements to identify and characterize chromospheric activity cycles in a sample of main-sequence FGK stars. About a dozen of these with existing ROSAT archival data were targeted with Swift to obtain a current epoch X-ray flux. We find that coronal variability by a factor of several is common on decade-long timescales (we attempt to link to the chromospheric cycle phase) but can also occur on short timescales between Swift visits to a given target, presumably related to stellar rotation and coronal inhomogeneity or to small flares.Additionally, we present new Swift monitoring observations of two M dwarfs with known exoplanets: GJ 15A and GJ 674. GJ 15A b is around 5.3 Earth masses with an 11.4 day orbital period, while GJ 674 is around 11.1 Earth masses with a 4.7 day orbital period. GJ 15A was observed several times in late 2014 and then monitored at approximately weekly intervals for several months in early 2016, for a total exposure of 18 ks. GJ 674 was monitored at approximately weekly intervals for most of 2016, for a total exposure of 40 ks. We provide light curves and hardness ratios for both sources, and also compare to earlier archival X-ray data. Both sources show significant X-ray variability, including between consecutive observations. We quantify the energy distribution for coronal flaring, and compare to optical results for M dwarfs from Kepler. Finally, we discuss the implications of M dwarf coronal activity for exoplanets orbiting within the nominal habitable zone.
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