My research efforts have focused on three areas which are: . More than 200 extrasolar planets have been discovered around relatively nearby stars, primarily through the Doppler line shifts owing to the reflex motions of their host stars, and more recently through transits of some planets across the face of the host stars. ... Gravitational microlensing provides a novel technique to look for planets around lens stars, and this is the only technique currently capable of detecting Earth-mass planets. ...

... Complex astrophysical phenomena could now be studied spectroscopically: the X-ray absorption line forest intrinsic to Seyfert galaxies; the interaction between AGN jets and intracluster media; hot winds of starburst galaxies; stellar coronal plasmas; the charge -exchange emission of Mars' exosphere; the X-ray irradiation of protoplanetary disks; and the myst erious flat-topped spectral line shapes of O star winds. ... We estimate that Gen-X will be able to detect and resolve 20, 000 stars in NGC...

... 70 · Winter 2007 www.astrosociety.org/uitc © 2007, Astronomical Society of the Pacific 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112 Hubble Observations of Ceres and Pluto: A Closer Look at the "Ugly Ducklings" of the Solar System by Max Mutchler Space Telescope Science Institute Introduction regret that my 4th Grade teacher, Mrs. Hadley, doesn't know that she provided me with the very first astronomy book that I ever read, because it had a profound impact on me. ... Planet count 7 6 7 11 12 13 8 9 9? ...