The SPOTLESS project, led by the director of the IEEC, is awarded an ERC Advanced Grant

The recipients of the ERC Advanced Grants, awarded by the European Research Council of the European Commission to fund projects led by researchers with an established track record, were announced last Thursday, 11 April. The SPOTLESS project, led by the director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya), and researcher of the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), Ignasi Ribas, is among the selected ones.

SPOTLESS aims to improve the search for exoplanets, in particular those that are similar to Earth, called exoearths. The discovery of such planets and the characterisation of their atmospheres requires techniques that very precisely measure their velocity and the light that reaches us. However, it is not sufficient to develop increasingly accurate measuring instruments: it is also necessary to understand the activity of the planets’ host star, so that its changes in brightness and surface spot distribution do not falsify the data obtained.

To correct for these effects, the physical phenomena occurring in the star must be understood and modelled. The SPOTLESS project will tackle this goal, and aims to develop a comprehensive strategy to model and mitigate the impact of stellar activity in order to find and characterise exoearths in a completely reliable way. The team led by Ignasi Ribas, with IEEC researchers at the ICE-CSIC, will have at least 5 years and 2.5 million euros to develop this research.