August 2008

August 8: Monthly Meeting

Extrasolar Planets

Heather Knutson

Heather is a 4th year graduate student in the astonomy department at Harvard University. Her reserach focuses on observations of planets orbiting other stars known as exrasolar planets. Heather, along with her thesis advisor, David Charbonneau has published a series of exciting observations including the first temperature map oa an extrasolar planet and the first detection of a temperature inversion in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet. She use observations of eclipsing systems, where the planet periodically passes in front of then then behind it's parent star to determine the properties of the planet. She is planning on talking about extrasolar planets in general, how do we find planets around other stars, and then how do we figure out their properties.