Astronomy Colloquia 11/1

On November 1, 2012 the Astronomy department at the University of Michigan held a Colloquia. Jason Wright, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, was the main speaker.

Wright is a member of the Center of Exoplanets for Habitable Worlds and the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center (part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute). He study stars, their atmospheres, their activity and their planets.

During his speech he focused on the detection and the discovery of exoplanets.  Exoplanets are planets that are discovered outside of the solar system. for more info on exoplanets go here: http://www.michastrostudent.blogspot.com/2012/11/exoplanets.html. His speech was very interesting because it described the indirect (for more information:http://www.michastrostudent.blogspot.com/2012/11/indirect-exoplanet-detection.html)  and direct (for more information: http://www.michastrostudent.blogspot.com/2012/11/direct-exoplanet-detection.html) methods of detecting exoplanets in detail.  He also described how hard it is to detect a habitable planet and the key components that define an exoplanet as habitable or non habitable.