RASC Hamilton Origins Institute seminar on ExoPlanets 20 Jan

[David Galbraith]

It also appears that Prof. Jonathan Fortney will give a public talk at 7:30 PM on the evening of 21 January:

The Kepler Mission: Finding Exotic Solar Systems on the Road to Earth-Like Planets

Room MUMC 1A1 on the McMaster Campus (MUMC is the McMaster University Medical Centre)

These are, I believe, free lectures.

 
> From: dr_d_a_galbraith at hotmail.com
> To: astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:19:54 -0500
> Subject: RASC Hamilton Origins Institute seminar on ExoPlanets 20 Jan
> 
> FYI for RASC-Hamilton:
> 
> The following notice has ben circulated courtesy of the Origins Institute at McMaster University:
> 
> Prof. Jonathon Fortney
> University of California, Santa Cruz
> Title Characterizing Low-Mass Low-Density Exoplanets
> Date January 20, 2014
> Time 2:30 pm (Coffee served at 2:15pm)
> Place: MDCL-1110 (Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery, McMaster University; a campus map is available here:: http://www.mcmaster.ca/welcome/campusmap.cfm) 
> Link http://www.ucolick.org/~jfortney/
> 
> Abstract NASA's Kepler Mission has revealed that the most common size of planet in our galaxy may be those from 2-3 Earth radii. Such medium-sized planets are significantly more common on close-in orbits than Neptune and Jupiter-class giant planets. We have no analog for these planets in our solar system. Mass measurements for these planets yield bulk compositions that are much lower in density than would be expected for rock-iron "super Earths." This naturally brings forth questions regarding the formation, nature, and evolution of these planets. This talk will predominately focusing on modeling the interior structure, atmospherics structure, and thermal evolution of low-mass low-density planets. An example relatively close to home is planet GJ 1214b, which is 2.6 Earth radii and 6 Earth masses, and orbits a cool M star near the Sun. This planet has been extensively studied with the Hubble and Spitzer Space telescopes. In this talk I will first discuss our current understanding of the composition and atmospheric physics of GJ 1214b, which is potentially the prototype for this class of low-mass low-density planets. I will then describe the physical processes that may be common to this class of planets, in particular atmospheric evaporation, and what future characterization of these planets may reveal. 
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