Finding and Understanding Exoplanets

In the past 30 years the study of exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, has grown from an obscure area of science to one that now has engages thousands of astronomers, planetary scientists, geologists, chemists, and biologists and holds top billing in national and international conferences. Exoplanet research now commands a significant fraction of time on US and international ground-based and space-based observatories and is driving the design plans for NASA’s and Europe’s next multi-billion dollar missions. In this talk, we will discuss the tremendous growth in exoplanet research as witnessed by Dr. Caldwell through his work on missions that discovered more than two-thirds of the currently known planets. We will learn about the techniques used to find exoplanets, what scientists are learning about them as we move from an era of discovery to one of understanding, and about future plans to search for life on these small worlds.

Speaker: Douglas Caldwell, SETI Institute