Overview
van Capelleveen, Richelle F.
0009-0002-6729-646X
richellevc
In 2023, I completed my master's in 'Astronomy and Data Science' at Leiden University. I have always loved the synergy between data science and astronomy, so with my electives I focussed on applications of neural networks to imaging.
I am currently employed as a PhD candidate at Leiden University. My main research involves working with direct imaging surveys. Other research interests are exoplanet collisions and deep dusty transits (think giant ringsystems).
You can download my full resume here (last updated: August 26, 2025).
YSES and WISPIT
The Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES; Bohn et al. 2021) is a VLT/SPHERE snapshot survey that targets 70 solar analogues of ~15 Myr in the LCC of ScoCen to discover and characterise wide-separation planetary mass companions. Among its discoveries is the first multi-planet system around a young sun, YSES 1 (Bohn et al. 2020). The WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT) survey extends the scope of YSES by targeting young Sun-like stars spanning a broader range of ages, and other regions of the sky.
WISPIT 1
WISPIT 1, located behind the coronagraph in the upper left corner of the unsharp masked observation shown in the top panel of the figure, is a young ~16 Myr system approximately 229 parsecs away. It is a binary with a solar-type primary, and hosts two comoving planetary mass companions at large semimajor axes.
WISPIT 1b, shown in the lower left panel of the figure, is a ~10 Jupiter mass planet orbiting at a projected separation of at least 338 au.
WISPIT 1c, shown in the lower right panel of the figure, is a ~5 Jupiter mass planet orbiting at a projected separation of at least 840 au, making it among the widest separation directly imaged planets to date.
The full publication can be accessed here.
WISPIT 2
WISPIT 2 is easily my favourite system! This young (~5 Myr) version of our sun is located ~133 parsecs away from us, and hosts a spectacular multi-ringed disk that, from North to South, is detected in scattered light out to over 300 au. The figure shows a clear detection of an embedded planet, WISPIT 2b. This ~5 Jupiter mass planet is clearing a gap in the planet-forming disk as it orbits WISPIT 2. The discovery of this system marks the first unambiguous detection of a ring-shaping embedded planet, and will likely be a benchmark for models of planet formation and planet-disk interactions for years to come.
Publications covering this discovery can be accessed here (ApJL 1) and here (ApJL 2).
A planetary collision
Can you imagine two worlds colliding? This is what is thought to have happened around ASASSN-21qj, a solar analogue located ~567 parsecs away from us. The hypothesis is that two ice giant planets collided and formed a synestia: a doughnut shaped body with a very hot core and a 1000K photosphere of vaporised silicates extending to seven times the size of the sun. The embedded video explains how this collision was observed. If you happen to understand Dutch, you can also listen to the embedded 5 minute podcast episode!
The full publication can be accessed here.