Strange New Worlds

I will describe our preparedness for the discovery of planets that are similar to the Earth, in temperature and in size. Once identified, the atmospheres of those worlds will be remotely explored. They will become the first Earth-like environments to be studied outside the Solar system

For more than 20 years astronomers have been discovering thousands of potential planets around other stars. Some of these planets have been wildly different to our own, or even any of the planets in our solar system. In this talk we'll go over some of these weird and wonderful discoveries and learn about some of the most interesting planets astronomers have been able to find. We'll learn more about the detection methods and instruments we use and what we might be able to achieve in the future with new instruments in the coming decades.

New instruments and other astronomical advances have enabled an unprecedented rate of exploration and revelations concerning the chemical compositions of exoplanetary atmospheres, interiors, and their formation conditions. We will discuss developments and future prospects of this new frontier, from detections of water vapour in exoplanets, the first hints of volcanism on a super-Earth to prospects of studying habitable exoworlds.