BREAKING THE SEEING BARRIERS FOR PLANETARY ASTRONOMY

When Galileo pointed his telescope toward Jupiter in 1609, and discovered what we now call the Galilean moons, he did not realize that he had just established a new research field in astronomy. In the past four centuries, planetary astronomy, the study of our solar system bodies using telescopes, has increased our knowledge of the environment of Earth, the evolution of planets, the origin of comets and asteroids and the formation of our solar system. Dr. Marchis will discuss the contributions of telescopic observation over the past 50 years, and look to the future of space-based astronomy, particularly for the search and study of exoplanets, planets around other stars in our galaxy. He will explore the most recent discoveries.

Speaker: Frank Marchis, SETI

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