Presenter:
Harrington, Joseph
When:
Wednesday, 6 May 2009 - 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Where:
Taste
- Street:
- 717 W. Smith Street
- City:
- Orlando
, - Province:
- Florida
- Postal Code:
- 32804
- Country:
- United States
Prior to 1993, we knew it would be a long time before anyone detected a planet orbiting another star. Then suddenly it happened, and it was bizarre! Not one, but several worlds doing the impossible: Orbiting pulsars—strange piles of neutrons leftover from powerful supernova explosions that no planet was thought capable of surviving. Shortly thereafter, a normal planet was found to orbit a normal star, in an orbit of just 4 days! The surprises do not end there.
Dr. Joseph Harrington, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCF, one of the first to measure exoplanets by their own light, will present a number of news-making discoveries by his team and others that have set the theory community abuzz.