Hunting Exoplanets
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This is a conversation with Jessie Christiansen. Dr Christiansen is a research scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute based at Caltech. Her research work focuses on studying different exoplanet systems, their occurrence rates and exoplanet catalogues. In this conversation we talk about the TESS and Kepler missions, how do we find new exoplanets, atmosphere of the exoplanets, biosignatures, alien life and how can people contribute in hunting new exoplanets?
About the guest
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:53 Latest count of the exoplanets
00:01:31 Jessie's career as a exoplanet hunter
00:02:19 Interest in astronomy
00:05:11 Why it is difficult to find exoplanets?
00:07:56 Telescopes on the ground or in the space
00:08:37 Early missions including Kepler to send telescopes in the space
00:10:32 Number of exoplanets discovered by Kepler
00:12:55 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
00:14:45 What is an exoplanet?
00:18:03 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
00:21:55 Does size of the telescope matter?
00:23:00 How far telescopes can be from earth's atmosphere?
00:25:26 Most common exoplanets
00:28:21 Studying atmosphere of exoplanets
00:31:07 Studying exoplanets in details
00:33:20 Telescope time allocation committee
00:35:02 Candidate and confirmed exoplanets
00:38:31 Orbit of detectable exoplanets
00:39:40 Direct imaging of the exoplanets
00:41:22 Colors in colorful pictures of exoplanets
00:44:17 How do the exoplanets are catalogued?
00:45:15 Biosignatures
00:47:02 Future technologies
00:48:54 New missions to look for biosignatures
00:50:09 Future work
00:51:40 Thank you!