JWST Legacy Archival Program Enabling Robust Stellar Context for Exoplanet Spectroscopy
Eyes on the Stars is a JWST archival research program focused on extracting and standardizing time-series spectroscopy products that help disentangle stellar and planetary signals in transmission spectra. The program emphasizes reproducible reductions, consistent assumptions across targets, and intentional consideration of stellar contamination as an astrophysical systematic to deliver products designed for downstream atmospheric inference.
Grant: JWST AR 5370 • Last updated: —
Stellar photospheres are not uniform. Spots, faculae, and other forms of heterogeneity can imprint wavelength-dependent signals that bias inferred planetary radii, spectral slopes, and molecular abundances. This is especially important for active K and M dwarfs and for the high-precision spectra enabled by JWST.
Eyes on the Stars provides uniform, contamination-aware products that support robust interpretation of JWST transmission spectra and facilitate meaningful comparisons across targets, instruments, and observing modes.
Quantify the impact of unocculted and occulted photospheric heterogeneity on transmission spectra and provide products designed for atmospheric retrieval workflows.
Apply consistent reduction and modeling assumptions across a broad set of JWST time-series observations, enabling population-level and cross-instrument analyses.
Deliver curated products and documentation that make it easier to incorporate stellar context into JWST-era atmospheric characterization.