Sasha Hinkley

Title: Comparative Exoplanetary Science Through Direct Imaging

Abstract: Most of the hundreds of exoplanets identified in the past 15 years have been detected indirectly---by monitoring the planets' effect on their host star's light. By overcoming the extremely large brightness contrast between the stars and their faint exoplanetary companions, astronomers are now able to actually image wide-separation exoplanets from large ground-based observatories like the W. M. Keck Observatory. This is allowing us to study these objects in detail, launching the field of comparative exoplanetary science. I will describe several of the techniques and results associated with this extremely challenging task of "high-contrast imaging." I will further describe some of our efforts at Caltech, including "Project 1640", a high contrast imaging program based at the Palomar 5m Hale Telescope. I will also touch on two other projects based at Keck: both center around deep interferometric imaging of very young stars in star-forming regions which are providing snapshots of the very early epochs of planet formation and evolution