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History of the Search for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds by Ken Hose
Our speaker will be Ken Hose. Ken is an avid amateur astronomer with a passion for delving deep into the science and trying things out for himself. He has generously shared his passion and knowledge with club members and local students for over two decades, helping manage club star parties and Summer astronomy camps and guiding students through the processes of collecting data and generating scientific results. The search for exoplanets has been one of his primary interests for a long time. He has also served on the RCA Board for much of his time in the club is a very important component in the glue that holds the club together. We're very grateful for Ken's commitment to the club and very fortunate to have him share some of his perspective and insights with us this month. His description of his presentation is below.
The history of exoplanets begins with the detection of 2 Earth-sized planets around a pulsar in 1992. The first exoplanet found around a Sun-like star happened in 1995. By the year 2000 over 60 planets were confirmed and a new field of research had begun. The first planets found around main-sequence stars were unlike those in our own solar system and caused astronomers to re-think planetary system formation. The Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009 and the program’s discoveries allowed an exponential increase in the number of confirmed planets. To date over 5000 planets have been confirmed and astronomers have a pretty good idea of the range of planetary system architectures and physical characteristics of the planets themselves. The vast majority of planet detections have been via the transit method where it is possible to detect the dimming of starlight as the planet passes in front of the host star along our line of sight. The resulting light curve can be used to estimate planet radius, its orbital distance, orbital inclination, and even estimates of the host star mass. This can even be done by amateurs with small telescopes. One of the main goals of exoplanet surveys is to find Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around stars like our Sun. So far, results have fallen a bit short of expectations.
About Ken Hose
Ken Hose has been an RCA member since 1999. He has a home observatory and likes scientific projects like photometry of exoplanet transits, variable stars, and star clusters. He has detected dozens of known exoplanets from his observatory with a 12” telescope. He also enjoys working with students on astronomy projects where real data is taken at the observatory and analyzed. Ken is a retired electronics engineer and has lots of time to devote to astronomy. This includes his position as VP of Membership in RCA.
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