Our team and mission

Candidates interested are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Exploring the data reduction pipeline for the Ariel exoplanet mission

For the detailed topic descriptions please go to this web page: 

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/science-internships/exploring-the-data-reduction-pipeline-for-the-ariel-exoplanet-mission

Ariel is an upcoming ESA exoplanet mission, designed to perform a large survey of diverse exoplanets (goal >1000 planets observed) and to characterise their atmospheres during the nominal four-year mission. The telescope will observe each planet during multiple transits of and/or eclipses by its host star: during a transit, a fraction of the starlight is blocked by the planet and an even smaller fraction is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere; during an eclipse, the reflected and/or emitted light of the dayside of the planet’s atmosphere is blocked by the star. Both types of observations can be utilized to deduce the composition of the planet’s atmosphere by analysing the obtained transit/eclipse spectra.

The atmospheric signatures of exoplanets are typically very small, often measured in parts per million (ppm). Achieving the level of precision required to detect such faint signals involves 1) collecting vast numbers of photons per spectral bin to reach an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio, and 2) applying sophisticated data reduction and calibration techniques. These techniques must correct for numerous factors, including detector artefacts (e.g., dark current), instrumental effects (e.g., throughput variations), spacecraft influences (e.g., pointing errors or jitter), and astronomical phenomena (e.g., limb darkening, stellar variability). In recent years, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has set new benchmarks for near-infrared exoplanet spectroscopy, demonstrating the power and necessity of advanced data pipelines to extract atmospheric information from such challenging observations. Building on lessons learned from JWST, the Ariel Mission Consortium (AMC) is developing a dedicated data reduction pipeline to address these challenges. The pipeline, designed to deliver transit and eclipse spectra of the highest possible quality, will be deployed at the Science Operations Centre (SOC) at ESAC in Madrid, Spain.  

Your goal is to explore and assess the AMC-developed pipeline within the SOC environment, using both simulated data and ground-based test datasets. The selected intern will become familiar with the Ariel pipeline’s structure and algorithms and will have the opportunity to directly compare its performance and methodology to those of JWST. By offering feedback on pipeline development and deployment, you will contribute valuable insights for the Ariel mission, while also gaining a deeper understanding of ESA as an international organisation and about ESAC’s science operations in particular. 

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

Education

You must be a university student, preferably studying at master’s level. In addition, you must be able to prove that you will be enrolled at your University for the entire duration of the internship.

Additional requirements

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another ESA Member State language is an asset. 

During the interview, your motivation for applying to this role will be explored. 

For this position you should have:

Some experience with command line computing (e.g. terminal, Unix) and a scripting language (e.g. python) is beneficial.