image: Dr Johanna Vos in Trinity College Dublin.
Credit: Trinity College Dublin.
Drs Johanna Vos has won a highly prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants to pursue research aimed at better understanding weather patterns in extrasolar worlds deep in the galaxy.
Dr Vos’ project: Exometeorology: Probing Extrasolar Atmospheres (Exo-PEA)
Over the past 30 years, astronomers have uncovered thousands of new extrasolar planets, which vary from small, rocky worlds, to giant planets like Jupiter. Additionally, lots of isolated or free-floating worlds have been discovered. We have already learned that the atmospheres of these strange worlds are highly complex, hosting a range of weather processes.
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) enables a new era in our understanding of extrasolar atmospheres. By providing observations of unprecedented quality, this ground-breaking facility opens a new window into these atmospheres.
Dr Vos was recently awarded three observing programmes as PI with the JWST that form the basis of her ERC project. By combining new data from these programmes with state of the art computational and data-driven techniques, her team will reveal the dominant atmospheric processes that give rise to weather on giant extrasolar worlds.
Dr Vos, Assistant Professor in Trinity’s School of Physics, said: “I am honoured to have been awarded this ERC Starting Grant and for the opportunity to expand the breadth and scope of research in my group. This funding will allow me to build a team that will make use of ground-breaking data from JWST to provide key insights into the atmospheres of worlds beyond our solar system.”
ERC Starting Grants draw funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme to enable excellent scientists, with up to seven years of post-PhD experience, to pursue their most promising ideas. The funds also enable recipients to significantly grow their research teams over the five-year duration of the projects they support.