Description
Are there planets around other stars? Are there Earth-like planets
around other stars? Do any of those harbor life? Intelligent life?
We'd like to know the answers to all of these questions, and in recent
years we've made great progress towards at least answering the first.
To date, more than 260 planets have been found around more than 200
other stars, most in the interstellar neighborhood of the Sun, but a few
at great distance. This lecture reviews the search for ExoPlanets,
discussing the successful Radial Velocity, Transit, and Microlensing
techniques. What we have found so far are very suprising systems,
especially Jupiter-size or bigger planets orbiting very close (few
hundredths of an AU) from their parent stars. Recorded 2007 Nov 29 in
1000 McPherson Lab on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
A new podcast, Astronomy 141, Life in the Universe, is available
for those interested in continuing an exploration of topics in
modern astronomy.
Published 12/06/09
Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how
we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather
than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I
am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what to look
for...
Published 11/30/07