IAA-CSIC researcher Rafael Luque receives a ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) researcher Rafael Luque has obtained one of the Starting Grants awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) for the THIRSTEE project, which aims to study and understand the origin and properties of subneptune planets. The funding, 1.5 million euros over the next five years, is part of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme.

Rafael Luque (University of Chicago) - Principal Investigator of THIRSTEE project

780 MILLION EUROS FOR 500 PROJECTS

The Starting Grant programme, which is funded as part of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme, is intended to support the creation of groups whose principal investigator has between two and seven years of postdoctoral experience and whose research activity is at the frontier of knowledge. Scientists can be from any country in the world as long as they carry out their work in one of the Member States of the European Union or associated countries. € 780 million for some 500 projects ranging from life and physical sciences to social sciences and the humanities. These projects will be carried out in 24 EU countries. Spain, with 33 projects, ranks sixth among the host countries. 

Iliana Ivanova, EU Research Commissioner, said: ‘The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our young talents under our Horizon Europe programme. The new grant winners will serve to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges. In this call, I am pleased to see one of the highest percentages of female grantees to date, a trend I hope will continue’.

UNDERSTANDING THE MOST COMMON EXOPLANETS

Although they do not exist in the solar system, sub-Neptune-type planets (objects of intermediate masses between Earth and Neptune) are the most common planets around solar-type stars in the Milky Way. However, observations so far have not been able to understand the most basic properties of these planets.

Abundance of the different types of exoplanets detected to date. Credit: Rafael Luque

The THIRSTEE project (‘Tracking Hydrates In Refined Sub-neptunes to Tackle their Emergence and Evolution’) aims to study and understand the origin and properties of these planets in three ways: the study of the atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the use of radial velocity instruments (which look for tiny oscillations in the motion of stars generated by the attraction of the planets revolving around them) from La Palma, Chile and Hawaii to obtain precise measurements of the masses and radii of these planets, and a statistical study that combines all the information obtained.

‘With THIRSTEE we want to confirm whether, as some hypotheses suggest, the most common type of planet in the galaxy has large amounts of water in its interior and atmosphere. This opens a way to evaluate the potential of subneptunes as candidates for the search for biomarkers with the technology that currently exists,’ explains Rafael Luque, CSIC scientist at the Instituto Astrofísico de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC).

The researcher stresses that ‘it is the first time that a project like this can be carried out thanks to the simultaneity of missions such as TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), JWST and the new-generation radial velocity instruments on Earth’. Furthermore, this research is applicable and will benefit the results of future European missions with Spanish participation, such as PLATO and ARIEL, which launches will overlap with the last years of the project.

Recreación artística de un planeta tipo Subneptuno. Crédito: Universtite de Montreal / B. Gougeon

ABOUT RAFAEL LUQUE

Rafael Luque, a 31-year-old astrophysicist from Córdoba, graduated in Physics from the University of Granada and holds a PhD in astrophysics from the University of La Laguna. After a brief six-month postdoctoral period at the IAA-CSIC, he obtained one of the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program grants, financed by NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute, as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, where he currently resides until his imminent incorporation to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC).

In addition to the ERC Starting Grant, Rafael Luque has obtained in this year's call for applications a Ramón y Cajal (R&C) contract, funded by the State Research Agency, with the aim of promoting the incorporation into research organisations of research personnel with an outstanding track record in order to acquire the skills and abilities that will enable them to obtain a stable position in a research organisation of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation System. Both contracts, of five years' duration, can be made compatible and their start date is August 2025.

Alongside his professional research career, Rafael Luque is co-founder of the non-profit association ‘Turismo Astronómico’, which has been carrying out activities for the education and dissemination of astronomy in the province of Granada (and in particular, the Geopark area) for more than a decade, and is Director of the Research Department of the ‘Complejo Astronómico Los Coloraos’, located in the desert of Gorafe.

SIX PROJECTS FOR THE CSIC 

In addition to Rafael Luque, from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), five other research projects of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), part of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU), have obtained one of the Starting Grants, which will provide 1.5 million euros to each project over the next five years. These selected projects are led by the scientists Andrea González-Montoro, from the Institute of Instrumentation for Molecular Imaging (I3M-CSIC-UPV); Carlos Anerillas, from the Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology  (CBM-CSIC-UAM); Cristina Viéitez, from the Institute of Functional Biology and Genomics (IBFG-CSIC-USAL); Laia Josa-Culleré, from the Institute of Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC-CSIC) and Marta Umbert; from the Institute of Marine Sciences  (ICM-CSIC).

About the IAA-CSIC

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) is a centre of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Its mission is to deepen our knowledge of the cosmos and bring it closer to society by conducting cutting-edge astrophysical and space science research, promoting technological development through the construction of new instrumentation and disseminating our research among the scientific community and the general public through outreach activities.