Price: Free
In the past two decades we have discovered more than 5000 planets orbiting other stars, the so-called exoplanets. This number is expected to increase into the tens of thousands in the near future, with the imminent launch of new planet hunting facilities, such as the ESA-led mission, PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars).
Exoplanets show a remarkable diversity in size and composition, and so far, no planetary system similar to our own has been ofund, raising the question “are we unique”? In this talk Catherine described the way exoplanets are discovered and characterised, with a focus on the search for potentially habitable rocky worlds that may have the surface conditions to support life (at least as we know it). She showed the first results from the state-of-the-art space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, which is revolutionising understanding of the atmospheres and climates of planets around other stars.
Catherine also had a discussion with Dr Erik Persson, Reader in Practical Philosophy at Lund University, Sweden, reflecting on her presentation:
Dr Catherine Walsh is an Associate Professor in the Astrophysics Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds. She obtained her PhD in Astrophysics in 2010 at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and spent her post-doctoral years in QUB and Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, before moving to Leeds in 2016. She currently holds a Future Leaders Fellowship funded by UKRI which has allowed her to grow a team with expertise in astrochemistry (the study of chemistry in space), planet formation, and exo-planetary atmospheres.
