Frontiers of Astronomy Community Lecture

OTHER WORLDS

We now know of nearly 300 planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. While planets appear to be common, very few known planetary systems resemble our solar system. Examples of exoplanets include a "hot Neptune" in a two-day orbit around a red dwarf star and a "super Jupiter" orbiting a dying giant star. Dr. Johnson will review the current state of knowledge about exoplanets and describe the techniques astronomers use to find and study these exotic other worlds.

John A. Johnson received Ph.D. in 2007 from University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Professor Geoffrey Marcy, one of the world's foremost discoverers of exoplanets. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he grew up in St. Louis, where he attended the University of Missouri-Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology). He studied aerospace engineering before changing his major to physics after reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. He later changed his field to astronomy after working on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) for about eight months.

Letter-size poster