Anthony Southwell: Exo-planets: The Search for Other Worlds

Description

In this lecture, Derby astronomer, Anthony Southwell will set out for deep space and take the audience on a Cosmic hunt, searching for Exo-planets, worlds in orbit of other stars.

Anthony will discuss what an Exo-planet is, the history of the idea, how planetary systems are formed, the strategies and methods used to search for them, the instruments used to find these worlds, both ground and space-based, the discovery of the first exo-planet ’51 Pegasi b’.

He will then look at the current exo-planet candidates and confirmed exo-planet counts.

Anthony will then go on to describe the characteristics of some of the confirmed Exo-planets, and, finally Anthony will discuss if life could arise on these worlds and could we travel to them.

Please note that there will be a break at 8pm during this event.