P2A Constellation Games Visualizations Astronomy Resources About

Hi there!

My name is Aryan Gupta, and I'm a senior at Princeton University studying Astrophysics with a minor in Statistics and Machine Learning. This website serves as a personal portfolio of my work. I'm always happy to chat if you'd like to reach out!

Research links:

Group photo by the JPL sign.
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Group photo by the JPL sign.

Brown Dwarf Secondary Eclipses

A brown dwarf illustration beside two stacked light curves showing AD 3116B disappearing behind its star.
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An artist's illustration beside AD 3116B's two Palomar eclipses, observed on March 21 and 23, 2026.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Giacalone, I studied two transiting brown dwarfs, LP 261-75C and AD 3116B, using the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory. Brown dwarfs bridge the mass range between planets and stars. They can orbit stars just like planets, but with masses of roughly 13–80 Jupiter masses, they cannot sustain hydrogen fusion. LP 261-75C and AD 3116B both orbit their stars about every two days and are about 20% as massive as their host stars.

A primary transit is when the brown dwarf crosses in front of its star from our viewpoint. However, when the brown dwarf passes behind the star, we see a secondary eclipse: a small dip in the system's light as the brown dwarf disappears from view. We can measure the secondary eclipse depth to estimate the thermal emission of the brown dwarf.

Because brown dwarfs cool as they age, we can compare our measurements with cooling models to estimate the ages of these brown dwarf–M dwarf systems. The cooling models suggest ages of 0.4–1.3 billion years for AD 3116B and 1.3–2.9 billion years for LP 261-75C, with the ranges reflecting differences between the evolutionary models.

I presented this project at AAS 248, earning a Chambliss Honorable Mention award. I have since submitted this paper to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific!

Star Formation in the Carina Nebula

Under the mentorship of Dr. David Rebolledo at the Joint ALMA Observatory in Santiago, Chile, I researched the Carina Nebula's Northern Cloud and Southern Pillars. These are two star-forming regions, where molecular gas, composed mainly of hydrogen, collapses under gravity to form new stars. The Northern Cloud lies next to the Trumpler 14 open cluster and is heavily irradiated by its massive O-type stars. In contrast, the Southern Pillars region lies farther away and experiences much weaker stellar radiation.

In this work, I used radio observations to investigate how these two regions form stars. I compared molecular tracers such as 13CO and N2H+ to assess how well they trace dense gas, and produced velocity decomposition maps to identify distinct gas substructures. I also analyzed CH3CN spectral lines to estimate the temperatures and densities of the molecular gas.

I'm continuing this work and plan to submit it for publication soon!

101 GHz continuum map of the Northern Cloud, with cores NC1, NC2, and NC3 marked.
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The Northern Cloud at 101 GHz, with the compact cores NC1–NC3 highlighted.