A Tour of Distant Worlds

After reminding us about the structure of our own solar system, Laura Kreidberg tells us the fascinating story of the Kepler mission, a recent satellite that has discovered thousands of worlds (exoplanets) beyond the 8 planets of our own solar system. In the process, she tells us how we can use telescopes (and a variety of techniques) to detect these distant worlds. Kepler has discovered a stunning diversity of structures/configurations of planetary systems, which Kreidberg explains. She then pivots to tell us how the next exciting NASA space telescope (the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor) could discover signatures of life on Earth-like planets.

Download:
A Tour of Distant Worlds