NGTS: The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is the most precise wide-­field ground­-based transit survey to date, which comprises 12 independent robotic telescopes based at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile (see images). Its main goal is to detect Neptune-sized (and smaller) planets around bright stars (V<13 mag). NGTS has detected 19 planets so far, including the shortest period hot Jupiter found to date and a planet in the Neptune desert (a region of very short orbital periods where we do not see many Neptune-sized planets because we think they can't survive very long being so close to their host stars). Both of these systems are very rare and I had a lot of fun characterising them!

NGTS clusters survey: My current focus within NGTS is leading our programme to systematically observe young open clusters: the NGTS Clusters Survey. Open clusters are groups to tens-to-thousands of stars, which are believed to have formed from the same molecular cloud and therefore share the same age and composition. This makes them extremely valuable for probing the timescales of evolutionary processes. For example, by characterising stars in open clusters of different ages, we can explore how their rotation rates and activity evolve over time. By detecting planetary systems, we can probe the timescales over which planets form, migrate (i.e. move onto small orbits close to their host star), and lose atmosphere.

NGTS photometry is really precise and rivals current space missions. The first NCS papers are out, with more coming soon... You can check them out here.

TESS: NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission is revolutionising the exoplanet field by surveying the whole sky to detect the closest planets. Launched in 2018, TESS completed its nominal 2-year mission to survey the full sky, and is now in its first extended mission where it is resurveying the sky with additional coverage of the ecliptic plane. TESS's main science goal is to detect and characterise small rocky planets orbiting nearby low-mass stars.

Our Guest Investigator programmes targeting young stars: With an all-sky approach, TESS is a fantastic mission to monitor dispersed young stars, such as nearby moving groups, loose associations and isolated young field stars. Our recent GI programmes, which I lead, have been approved to monitor 11,050 of the nearest and brightest young stars in the sky at 2-min and 20-sec cadence. We have two science goals: (i) detect and characterise young transiting planets to understand their early evolution and resulting diversity, and (ii) characterise stellar flares to map out the early evolution of flare activity and use this to experimentally test origin of life scenarios for planets around M-dwarfs.