Description:

Title: Imaging other worlds

Speaker:Dimitri Mawet, Caltech

Abstract: Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered over the past 20 years. We learned that our solar system is just one example among a mind-boggling variety of architectures: from circumbinary exoplanets, systems with tightly packed inner planets, water-worlds, potential Earth twins, super-Earths, sub- and super-Neptunes, evaporating comet-like planets, planets with giant rings, hazy hot Jupiters all the way to extremely long-period lonely massive objects looking more like failed stars than giant planets. The majority of these planetary systems have been detected by indirect techniques, looking for instance at tiny variations in their host star’s motion and/or brightness. These techniques have ushered in an entirely new branch of astrophysics called comparative exoplanetology, putting the solar system and its planets into a universal perspective. In this talk, I will focus on high contrast imaging, using a slew of state-of-the-art facilities including current large and future extremely large ground-based telescopes as well as dedicated space-based platforms currently in the works. Beyond taking striking pictures, high contrast imaging is the only technique that promises to yield the most detailed measurements of distant worlds, revealing amazing details about their diversity and intimate architecture.

Host: Mel Ulmer

Speaker Schedule

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium