Projects
ARIEL Space Mission
The Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, has been selected to be the next ESA M4 space mission. From its launch in 2028 and during its 4 years of operation, ARIEL will perform a spectroscopic survey of the atmospheres of about 1000 transiting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. ARIEL will provide the scientific community with the first spectroscopic survey of a statistically significant sample of exoplanet atmospheres, covering the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning from the visible to the mid-IR. ARIEL will allow us to answer questions about the true nature of these faraway worlds, their atmospheric and physical conditions, and their formation and evolutionary histories.
Within ARIEL I am involved in different projects:
ArielRad
Radiometric model simulator for the ARIEL space mission. I am the developer.
Target list optimisation
Candidate targets analysis to optimize the mission scientific output.
Alfnoor
Simulator born from the merging of ArielRad and TauREx to produce ARIEL simulated data-set of entire planetary populations.
ExoClock
Exoplanet epoch follow up using amateurs ground based observatories. I am the italian contact point.
Tiger Team
Team of experts called to solve difficut problems. I am the coordinator.
Data Challenge
Machine Learning contest to identify and correct for the effects of stellar and instrument noise.
S2MD
Simulators Software, Management and Documentation. I am the coordinator.
ADaRP
Ariel Data reduction pipeline. I am involved in the architecture design and the code development.
EXCITE
The EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE) is a balloon-borne spectrograph that will address the limitations of current space-based NIR observatories while complementing and maximizing the science return of JWST. With a 0.5 m-class telescope, EXCITE will measure spectroscopic phase curves of bright, short-period extrasolar giant planets (EGPs, or “hot Jupiters”) across the 1–4 μm range. We will continuously observe each target for a full orbital period and use the resulting phase-resolved spectroscopy to map the planet’s temperature profile and chemical composition as a function of longitude.
