Speaker: Melaine Saillenfest (LTE, Paris Observatory)

Title: The MRT project: looking for Moons and Rings in Taiwan

Time: 02:20pm Tuesday 26/May/2026

Venue: Room S101, 1F, Lecture Hall (G112)

Abstract:

Discovering rings around exoplanets is among the next major milestones of extra-solar exploration. Yet, despite technical feasibility with existing instruments, no Saturn-like exoring has been confirmed to date. While part of the explanation is observational biases, the absence of detection also comes from our profound lack of knowledge about what are rings, how they form, and what are their lifetimes. With the MRT project (CAG, NTNU), we aim to answer these questions from the perspective of rings demographics in the Solar System. The existence of ring systems around small Solar System bodies gives us the opportunity of gathering many instances of rings, enabling statistical studies of their properties and natural evolution processes. To do so, the MRT project will run a network of telescopes dedicated to stellar occultations distributed across Taiwan’s territory, while benefiting from theoretical advances brought by the companion French project WRAPS: “Where do Rings Appear in Planetary Systems?”