Physics talk: Exoplanets and the search for Earth 2
Welcome to Physics 10th September 2020
This is a recording of a talk given over Zoom in summer 2020. We organised four of these webinars for students who had received offers to join us as physics undergraduates. They’re all delivered by our lecturers on areas of their research.
Exoplanets: The Hunt for Earth 2
There are far more planets than just the eight in our solar system – as of June 2020, more than 4000 planets have been identified orbiting other suns. Astrophysicist Dr Eamonn Kerins explains how scientists not only find these incredibly distant objects but how they’re able to work out a planet’s properties… including whether they might be able to support life.
Speaker bio – Dr Eamonn Kerins
Dr Eamonn Kerins is a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. His research in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is in looking for cool planets around other stars by detecting how they warp space-time. He co-leads the Exoplanet Science Working Group for the European Space Agency’s upcoming Euclid space mission, and has previously acted as a consultant for NASA’s WFIRST space telescope proposal. He is also a member of the MiNDSTEp team, which looks for planets using ground-based telescopes.
Watch the video
You can see the talk and the Q&A at the University’s video page.
Find out more
- Watch Eamonn’s talk from the 2019 bluedot festival: “What Does it Take To Leave Our Planet?“
- Information on the exoplanets research in our Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics
- Try finding an exoplanet yourself with the Exoplanet Explorers citizen science project
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