You Can’t Spell Exoplanets Without Ex(exutions)! Student Talk

Local secondary aged students are invited to hear from Astrophysicist Dr Jessie Christiansen

Jessie has been called the “Tomb Raider of exoplanet research”. Working at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, Jessie searches for, studies, and catalogues extrasolar planets – planets orbiting other stars. Her main research focuses on using the thousands of exoplanets found by the NASA Kepler mission to determine how common Earth-like planets might be in our galaxy. She is currently working on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) which will search the entire sky to discover even more planets beyond our solar system.

Jessie’s talk You Can’t Spell Exoplanets without Ex(exutions)! focuses on our quest to resolve one of the oldest questions – whether we are, in fact, alone in the universe – we have pushed our thoughts, our dreams, and our technology ever further to find life on other planets. This has resulted in an astonishing era of discovery… but, not without some misadventures! Jessie will present a tour through 400+ years of contemplating, looking for, and ultimately finding planets around other stars. We will examine some of the more incredibly unexpected planets that populate our Galaxy, and finally, we will look forward to some possible surprises the Universe has in store for us.

This event is designed for secondary school aged students, parents | guardians are welcome to attend with their student.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech