Imaging Extrasolar Planets

Although more than a thousand extrasolar planets are now known, almost all have been discovered through indirect techniques. A small number have been directly imaged - the planet spatially resolved from its star - which opens up detection of new kinds of planets (young, massive, in the outer parts of other solar systems) inaccessible to other techniques, and allows spectroscopy to measure the composition of these planets' atmospheres. I will discuss the problem of directly seeing planets, and the implications of these observations. A new instrument, almost an order of magnitude more sensitive than its predecessors, has been deployed on the Gemini South telescope. Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), combines adaptive optics using silicon micro machined deformable mirrors, a starlight-blocking coronagraph, and an advanced spectrograph, and is predicted to discover 20-50 new imaged planets.

Speaker: Dr. Bruce Macintosh, Stanford