The MUSCLES Treasury Survey:
Measurements of the Ultraviolet Spectral Characteristics of Low-mass Exoplanetary Systems
Subject Category: STARS AND WD
Proposal Number: 16200943
Title: The MUSCLES Treasury Survey:
Measurements of the Ultraviolet Spectral Characteristics of Low-mass Exoplanetary Systems
PI Name: Kevin France
This proposal aims to acquire critical UV observations of low-mass host stars,
providing a treasury database for studies of exemplary nearby exoplanetary
systems and potentially habitable worlds not yet discovered. We propose the
MUSCLES Treasury Survey: a UV survey of nearby low-mass exoplanetary host stars.
Using HST-COS and STIS, we will observe the 1150 - 5700A fluxes, reconstruct the
important Ly-alpha emission lines, and use these data to estimate the extreme-UV
(200 - 912A) irradiances incident upon exoplanetary atmospheres. The UV data
will be complemented with contemporaneous X-ray and ground-based observations as
well as new M dwarf atmosphere models to constrain atmospheric heating rates and
provide a baseline for long-term ground-based studies of these systems.
