[Baps] Physics Colloquium talk on 10/01/07 with Dimitar Sasselov

[Sarah Stewart-Mukhopadhyay]

http://www.physics.harvard.edu/events/MondayColloq.html


"The Path To Extrasolar Earths"
Dimitar Sasselov
Harvard University, Astronomy
Jefferson 250
Tea will be served in Jefferson 450 @ 3:30 pm
Oct 1, 2007
4:15p

Description More than 250 gas giant planets orbiting nearby stars have so
far been discovered. However, current technology is not sensitive enough
to detect extrasolar planets that are small and rocky like the Earth.
I will describe ongoing efforts to develop new tools that should
enable such planets to be discovered and characterized in the next
few years. In particular, I will emphasize a recent key advance at
the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard Physics, and MIT: the use of
optical frequency combs as high-precision wavelength calibrators in
next-generation astronomical spectrographs. This technology should
also enable advances in observational cosmology. I will then
describe the diverse range of rocky planets that we expect to
discover. Some should be like our familiar solar system planets, but
many should be quite different: with masses up to ten times that of
the Earth, with compositions ranging from rocky to water-rich (ocean
planets) and a diverse range of interior dynamics and surface
conditions.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/baps/attachments/20070928/50e3eb2c/attachment.htm