Friday, March 3, 2017

Lecture & Stargazing: Hot Jupiters


We hosted famed Professor Konstantin Batygin tonight for a lecture on his theory for the potential origin of Hot Jupiters, a class of massive exoplanets found near their host stars.  Professor Batygin is famous for his work with Mike Brown on Planet 9, that there is an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system influencing the dynamics of massive Kuiper-belt objects, but tonight he talked about exoplanets instead.  Professor Batygin gave a really engaging, but pretty advanced talk on how Hot Jupiters, *could* form in situ without the need for migrating inward as the popular paradigm currently dictates.  It was thought-provoking and well-delivered--thank you, Konstantin!








Afterwards, we were able to observe on the newly renovated athletic fields near Cahill, and the athletics department even turned off some of their stadium lights for us.  Great views of the heavens tonight!


Finally, we had a Q&A panel that covered a large number of question topics ranging from exoplanets to the origins of the cosmos.  Thanks to everyone who stuck around for a question!


--Cameron

3 comments:

  1. Such an informative article. It's amazing how science can be surprising in unexpected ways. Lectures like these don't happen often and science fanatics should never miss them.

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