all David Charbonneau stories

A new era in search for ‘sister Earths’?

404132862 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:27:28 -0400

Research presented at a recent astronomical conference is being hailed as ushering in a new era in the search for Earth-like planets by showing that they are more numerous than previously thought and that scientists can now analyze their atmospheres for elements that might be conducive to life.

Light detected from alien planets

50443248 — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:54:49 -0400

Light from two worlds far from our solar system has been detected for the first time. The planets that emit it are too hot to be inhabited, at least by intelligent beings, but an Earthly satellite has gotten the best views yet of planets orbiting other stars like the sun.
"It's an awesome experience to realize we are seeing the direct glow of distant worlds," says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "When I first saw the data, I was ecstatic."

Tiny "David" telescope finds "Goliath" planet

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:35:14 -0400

A newfound planet detected by a small, 4-inch-diameter telescope demonstrates that we are at the cusp of a new age of planet discovery. Soon, new worlds may be located at an accelerating pace, bringing the detection of the first Earth-sized world one step closer. "This discovery demonstrates that even humble telescopes can make huge contributions to planet searches," says Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), a co-author on the study. This is the very first extrasolar planet discovery made by a dedicated survey of many thousands of relatively bright stars in large regions of the sky. It was made using the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES), a network of small, relatively inexpensive telescopes designed to look specifically for planets orbiting bright stars.

Atmosphere detected on distant world orbiting another star

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:16:28 -0400

One-hundred-and-fifty light years away from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus, is a star known as HD 209458. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a research team was able to detect the atmosphere of a planet orbiting the star. This marks the first time that scientists were able to observe the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. They also were able to get information about its chemical composition. The astronomers were not looking specifically for gases that would be found in a life-sustaining atmosphere, since it's not probable that a planet as hot as the one observed would contain life. But they think their technique can be used to look at other planets' atmospheres, which could provide the first direct evidence for life beyond Earth. The discovery was made by David Charbonneau of the California Institute of Technology and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Timothy Brown of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Robert Noyes of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Ronald Gilliland of the Space Telescope Science Institute.