Stars, Planets and Disks

Daniel will be talking about the reasons astronomers always build their telescopes on top of mountains, as space telescopes outside of Earth’s atmosphere or even on airplanes as flying observatories. He will explain how he “is getting high” himself to chase Alien Worlds – planets outside our solar system – and how he measures their atmospheric composition. Finally Dr. Angerhausen will show how our generation is the first in history that has a realistic chance to answer the millennia old question: “Are we alone in the Universe?”.

Throughout their lifetimes, solar type stars experience changing rotation rates due to torques from magnetized winds and evolving stellar structure. Angie will talk about how we can use a measured rotation period to infer a star’s age in a technique known as ‘gyrochronology’.

How did Earth and the rest of our solar system form? To find out we look to younger stars, where we see the dramatic effects of forming planets as they shake up dust across their star systems. Anna will talk about how she uses the latest technology to observe the chaotic births of distant worlds.