Our research explores almost every aspect of the hunt for, and study of, planets outside our Solar System.

We use a variety of observing techniques, including :

  1. Bullet"Doppler Wobble" searches for planets orbiting Sun-like stars, sub-giants, M-dwarfs and transit -planet hosts;

  2. BulletDirect imaging of long-period companion systems with NICI on Gemini

  3. Bullet"Direct" detection searches for planetary-mass members of nearby star clusters; and

  4. BulletDirect searches for the coldest planetary-mass brown dwarfs in large sky surveys.

We also explore the theory of the formation of exoplanets, and their dynamical evolution and survival.

The search for extrasolar planets, and the understanding of the habitability of those planets, is a key component of the global, multi-disciplinary astrobiology initiative. Our group is a key component of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology here at UNSW.

We also lead new instrumentation projects like the new CYCLOPS and CYCLOPS2 fibre feeds for the Anglo-Australian Telescope, and the Veloce spectrograph project.

Prospective PhD students from UNSW and elsewhere interested in working in exoplanetary science are encouraged to contact me to discuss possible research projects. I have funds to provide top-up support of $6000 per annum for PhD students with APAs or international scholarships.

UNSW Physics Honours students can also undertake research projects in our group - details on projects currently on offer can be found to here.




Exoplanetary Science at UNSW People

  1. BulletProfessor Chris Tinney

  2. BulletDr Rob Wittenmyer (Lecturer)

  3. BulletDr Jade Carter-Bond (Research Associate)

  4. BulletDr Jonti Horner (Research Associate)

  5. BulletDr Graeme Salter (Super Science Fellow)

  6. BulletDr Duncan Wright (Super Science Fellow)

  7. BulletMr Stephen Parker (PhD Student)

  8. BulletMr Brett Addison (PhD student)




    Our Publications


    Our Funding




Contact details

  1. Prof. Chris Tinney

  2. Dept of Astrophysics

  3. School of Physics

  4. University of NSW. 2052

  5. Australia

  6. Ph: +61 2 9385 5168

  7. Fax: +61 2 9385 6060

  8. c dot tinney at unsw dot edu dot au





Finding Us

The bookmark on the google map below will get you to the main entrance of the 'Old Main Building' (it was actaully the home of the Chancellery when the University was founded).


We live on Level 1, within the School of Physics, so head up one flight of stairs to find us.


 

News


  1. Top-up scholarships of $6000 per annum are available for PhD students working in our group




  1. Bullet19 December 2012 - "Periodic variations in the tau Ceti velocities" (A&A in press)
    - Paper now available on     astro-ph.
    -     UNSW Press Release
    -     UK Press Release
    -     UK Press Release Materials & Images

    Coverage
    - New Scientist
    - Space.com
    - The Guardian
    - Fairfax
    - ABC Online
    - ABC PM (Cached audio)
    - The Australian, Daily Telegraph
    - COSMOS
    - AFP

  2. Bullet14 Nov 2012 - UNSW had a great night at the 2012 NSW Science and Engineering Awards last night, winning five "Excellence" awards - Chris Tinney (from the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group), Matthew England, Angela Moles, Emma Johnston & Andrew Dzurak all came home with awards. The Excellence award in Physics, Maths, Chemistry & Astronomy won by myself, is a reflection of the excellent work done by everyone in our Exoplanetary group, and I consider it to reflect on us all as a group!

  3. Bullet14 Nov 2012 - COSMOS and ABC Online ask about the true nature of the object CFBDSIR2149 - planet or brown dwarf?

  4. Bullet14 Nov 2012 - The ABC has broadcast Chris Tinney's 2012 Harley Wood Lecture as part of its Big Ideas series. You can listen or download the lecture at the Big Ideas website.

  5. Bullet6 Nov 2012 - ARC results were announced yesterday. In a tough year for Physics at UNSW, our group brought home UNSW's largest grant this year, including a Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award and funding for a 3-year post-doctoral researcher - so keep an eye out for a job ad in M-dwarf precision Doppler velocities or AO-assisted parallax work in the New Year.

  6. Bullet16 Oct 2012 - AST3 Exoplanet Working Group on Chinese-Australian Collaboration

  7. Bullet16 Sep 2012 - Veloce project.

  8. Bullet14 Sep 2012 - 2nd Australian Exoplanet Workshop will take place on 10-11 Dec 2012 at Mt Stromlo Observatory, Canberra. See
    http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/planets/home.html

  9. Bullet4 Sep 2012 - CYCLOPS2 Commissioning!

  10. Bullet21 Mar 2012 - The Exoplanet Science at UNSW group, along with the rest of the Astrophysics and Condensed Matter Physics staff, have moved back into the newly refurbished Level 1 of the Old Main Building! Pictures are available at the School of Physics and Faculty of Science news pages on their websites.

  11. Bullet16-17 Feb 2012 - The whole UNSW Exoplanetary and Planetary team attended the first Australian Exoplanetary Workshop, hosted by Macquarie University. This was a very successful workshop - it is amazing to see just how broad and deep the exoplanetary field in Australia has grown in the last 5 years. Many thanks to Lucyna Chudczer, Sarah Maddison and Mike Ireland for doing most of the organising. Talks by UNSW team members can be downloaded from the Workshop website.

  12. Bullet2 Feb 2012 - A team of international astronomers (including UNSW members of the Magellan Planet Search) have announced the detection of a planet of at least 4.5 Earth masses in the "habitable" zone of the star GJ 667C. The story is available at ABC Online, COMOS Online, and many other places. The Sydney Morning Herald have AFP coverage from the related Carnegie release. See here for the UNSW release.

  13. Bullet15 October 2011 - Further kinematic and dynamical analysis of the proposed HU Aquarii planetary system adds to the evidence presented in Horner et al. 2011 that this is probably is not a planet hosting system after all - see the paper accepted in MNRAS Wittenmyer et al. 2011.

  14. Bullet29 October 2010 - UNSW Researchers feature on ABC Online in "The Planet Hunters".

  15. Bullet25 October 2010 - Exoplanetary Science group scores big in 2011 ARC Discovery round with all 3 grants submitted being successful, providing $665k in new funding.

  16. Bullet14 Dec 2009 - AAPS and Keck planet searches announce 4 new exoplanets including the first Super Earth found orbiting a truly Sun-like star. For more details see AAO and UNSW press pages, and the AAPS web page.

  17. Bullet10 Sep 2009 - AAPS featured on ABC TV's Catalyst. See the video!

  18. Bullet15 Jan 09 - Stephen Parker and Chris Tinney observe at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. See the movie that ESO made!

  19. See the News page for more details and an archive of older items.



Major Projects

  1. BulletAnglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS) - searching more than 200 nearby stars for gas-giant and SuperEarth exoplanets ... and finding more than 40 of them!

  2. BulletPan-Pacific Planet Search - a search for giant planets orbiting sub-giant stars

  3. BulletA Habitable-zone M-dwarf Planet Search using the AAT.

  4. BulletThe Australian Centre for Astrobiology is a UNSW Centre, of which Chris Tinney is a Deputy Director.

  5. BulletCYCLOPS - a new model for fibre injection of an echelle spectrograph.

  6. BulletVeloce - a next-generation fibre-IFU-fed precision Doppler spectrograph for the AAT

  7. BulletPlanet Search with Gemini NICI - a Gemini program to image AAPS stars that we know have long-period companions, so that we can find out if they are massive, very-long-period brown dwarfs, or undetectable shorter-period planets.

  8. BulletNPARSEC - an ESO Large Programme to measure parallax distances for 60 T-type brown dwarfs at the New Technology Telescope over the next three years.

  9. BulletMining the southern sky for Y dwarfs - Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group members are collaborating with the NASA WISE Brown Dwarf Science team on the follow-up of all the T- and Y-type brown dwarfs in WISE's all-sky survey database.


Australian Center for Astrobiology
- members in Astrophysics

  1. BulletProfessor Chris Tinney (Deputy Director)

  2. BulletMr Brett Addisson

  3. BulletA/Professor Jeremy Bailey

  4. BulletProfessor John Webb

  5. BulletProfessor Michael Burton

  6. BulletDr Maria Cunningham

  7. BulletDr Lucyna Kedziora-Chudzer

  8. BulletDr Jonti Horner

  9. BulletDr Duncan Wright

  10. BulletDr Graeme Salter


PhD, Honours & Undergraduate Students

  1. BulletPhD Projects

  2. BulletHonours Projects for 2011

  3. BulletVacation Scholarships



Exoplanetary Science at UNSW Links

  1. Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS)

  2. Australian Centre for Astrobiology

  3. UNSW Astrophysics

  4. UNSW Physics


Miscellaneous links

  1. BulletSeen something weird in the sky? Want to know what's happening this month? Then visit Sydney Observatory's very cool blog.

  2. BulletDetailed analysis of AAO CCD non-linearity released.

  3. BulletCorrecting the SOFI shade

  4. BulletBefore moving to UNSW I was at the AAO for 12 years & was responsible at various times for IRIS2, WFI, UCLES, and the EEV & MITLL CCDs.



This page last updated 1 February 2013