Music of the Spheres: Results from the Kepler Mission

Jason Rowe - Attention, notez le jour et l'heure inhabituels

NASA Ames/Californie

The launch of Kepler offers a special opportunity to study the nature of stars and their companions through transit photometry. This includes, but is not limited to, stellar companions such as M-dwarfs and non-stellar companions such as brown dwarfs (BDs) and white dwarfs. From the spacecraft's Earth-trailing orbit heliocentric photometric measurements are devoid of artifacts usually associated with instruments in close proximity to the Earth, due to problems such as the day-night cycle and effects imposed by the Earth's atmosphere on ground based observations, and orbital effects for satellites in low earth orbit. I will present an overview of the Kepler mission and its performance as well as describe the discoveries of new extrasolar planets, white dwarfs and what we learn about their properties from transit photometry and asteroseismology.

Date:	Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Time:	12:30
Where:	Université de Montréal
	Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, local D-460
Contact:	Anthony Moffat