Doug Lin

Doug Lin was a guest of the University of Michigan Astronomy department last week, and on October 11 he gave a talk on planetary system formations. 

Doug Lin is a professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California in Santa Cruz. For more info check here http://research.pbsci.ucsc.edu/astro/faculty/

Lin's talk focused primarily on the origin, evolution, and destiny of close-in Super Earths. Super Earths are in simpler terms "Earth-like" planets. He went into detail about his work. He explained that new data that has been obtained from Kepler transit surveys and systematic radial velocity surveys, led to the discovery of 700 planets and 3000 other planetary candidates.  These planets have diverse structures and they are found orbiting stars. 

Lin plans on using his data to find the origin, destiny, and evolution of these planets. Keep a look out for Lin's future discoveries because we will need a new planet in 4.5 billion years.