Title: Toward the discovery and characterisation of Earth-like planets

Abstract: More than 25 years after the first discovery of an exoplanet around a main-sequence star, more than 5000 exoplanets have been detected and confirmed.

These new discoveries have shown us the great diversity of exoplanets present in our galaxy. In the next decade, one of the major scientific challenges will be the discovery of habitable Earth-like worlds.

 For example, the next European Space Agency mission PLATO (due to launch in 2026) is specifically tasked with finding Earth-analogue transiting planets. After describing basic concepts on the discovery of exoplanets, I’ll present during this talk some of the latest updates on the detection and characterisation of exoplanets. My focus will be on the remaining challenges that we are facing in order to detect our Earth 2.0.

Biography: I’m Jean Costes, a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast.

I’m mainly working on the detection of exoplanets, focusing on the mitigation of stellar activity. As part of the HiRISE core team (a new instrument that we installed last summer at ESO Paranal in Chile)

I’m also looking into exoplanet atmospheres. 

Venue: Larmor Lecture Theatre, Physics building, Queen’s University Belfast, 7.30 p.m.

Admission free, including light refreshments. All welcome.