My time at iREx: Roseane de Lima Gomes

Roseane de Lima Gomes, courtesy image.

IREx: What did you like most about your time in Montreal?
Roseane: Montreal is a beautiful city, and it was amazing to experience living in a bilingual environment. The people I worked with at Université de Montréal (UdeM) were incredibly kind, friendly, and respectful. I miss them a lot. The seasons in Montreal are also something truly special!

IREx: What was the most important project(s) you led at iREx?
Roseane: Collaborating with colleagues from UdeM and the Natal team in Brazil, I studied photometry (using data from the space telescope TESS) and spectroscopy (using data from the NIRPS spectrograph) from M-dwarfs (the smallest and least massive stars) to search for planets orbiting these stars. These stars are potential hosts for planets like ours. Additionally, I investigated rotation, flares, and pulsation signals in these stars because it’s crucial to understand the interactions between the stars and their planets, and how these interactions impact the possibility of life in those systems.

IREx: What question(s) were you trying to answer in this project?
Roseane: How can we detect phenomena like rotation, flares, and pulsations in M-dwarfs that host planets? How might these phenomena influence the potential for life in these worlds?

IREx: What did you discover?
Roseane: So far, no one has found pulsation signals in M-dwarfs (and neither have I!), even though it’s theoretically possible. However, I continue searching for these cases, as the universe might still be hiding them from us.
Also, M-dwarfs are active stars, and this activity—such as flares and rapid rotation—can pose challenges to the habitability of planets orbiting them, reducing our chances of finding life on these worlds.

IREx: What motivates you in exoplanet research?
Roseane: The vast abundance of planets in the universe and the exciting search for life beyond Earth are incredibly motivating. I am especially driven by the desire to understand the existence and diversity of planets that we are discovering so far.

IREx: Why do you think people should be interested in this kind of work?
Roseane: I believe that understanding our origins in the universe and our potential future is a fundamental question that humanity must strive to answer.

IREx: How will your time with us help you in your new job?
Roseane: I’ve learned so much through the meetings (like IREx weekly coffee meetings), which helped me deepen my knowledge of exoplanetary research. I’ve also gained valuable experience working with large datasets from the NIRPS instrument. Most importantly, I’ve had the honour of collaborating with many esteemed researchers from Canada and other countries. Their support, along with my contributions to the team, has been incredibly enriching. All of this has already begun shaping new and exciting directions for my future research and projects.