Jo Barstow, Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellow University College di Londra, dando un discorso intitolato 'chiamando tutti exoplanet hunters', sul cosmo stadio, a New Scientist Live 2019
3744 x 5396 px | 31,7 x 45,7 cm | 12,5 x 18 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
13 ottobre 2019
Ubicazione:
ExCel London, One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock,
Altre informazioni:
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Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than our sun. We want to find out if they are similar to, or completely different from the planets in our solar system. But it’s tricky; often, they are too small and faint to see them next to their much bigger, brighter parent stars, because they are many light years away. Instead, we use space telescopes to look at light from the star itself that has passed through the planet’s atmosphere. In this talk, Jo explains how the planet's atmosphere leaves fingerprints in the starlight and how that reveals what conditions are like on the planet. Jo Barstow is a planetary scientist specialising in the study of exoplanet atmospheres. She particularly likes the cloudy ones because she started her research career studying sulphuric acid clouds on Venus (and it means she gets to make terrible jokes about the British weather). Jo currently holds a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellowship at University College London, and previously worked at the University of Oxford. When she’s not being an exoplanet detective, hobbies include singing, theatre and toddler-wrangling. Dr Barstow's research area is planetary atmosphere modelling, with a current focus on extrasolar planets. She uses spectral inversion techniques to infer atmospheric temperature structure and the presence of gases and aerosols from spectra obtained during exoplanet transit and eclipse. Her particular interest is modelling and observation of clouds and hazes on exoplanets. Recent work includes a comparative study of cloudy hot Jupiters, and an investigation into the observability of terrestrial planets around M dwarf stars using the James Webb Space Telescope. Dr Barstow is a Science Working Group lead for the ARIEL candidate mission (https://ariel-spacemission.eu/) and holds a Royal Astronomical Society research fellowship to investigate the influence of host stars on exoplanet atmospheres.
