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Peter McCullough
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You Too Can Discover an Extrasolar Planet |
Dr. Peter R. McCullough |
Thursday, Apr 8, 2010 at 8:00 PM |
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NASA/ESA/P. McCullough
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In the past decade, one of the fastest growing fields of astronomy has been the discovery and characterization of planets that pass in front of (or "transit") their host stars. From telescopes in backyards to ones in space, observations of our "XO Project" and many others around the globe are contributing to this burgeoning field of inquiry (e.g. Garcia-Melendo & McCullough (2009) and others' discovery of the transit of the 111-day-period HD 80606b). I will review how the XO Project made discoveries in the past, and describe its reincarnation as a growing network of collaborators to increase the rate of discovery. May this presentation inspire you to join us in a future discovery.
Dr. Peter R. McCullough is an employee of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore MD, currently on sabbatical at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge MA. He is an astronomer with expertise in detectors, instruments, and planets orbiting other stars. He has lead international teams in the discovery of extrasolar planets and their characterization with space telescopes such as Hubble and Spitzer. In 2009 he participated in the verification of one of the instruments installed by a NASA space shuttle crew into the Hubble Space Telescope. He is a husband and father of two children.
Please join us for a pre-meeting dinner discussion at Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA at 6:00pm before the meeting. |
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