Cafe Sci // Strange New Worlds

Planets beyond the Solar System.

With Elisabeth Mathews, Exeter University Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Astronomers today believe that more than half of the stars in the sky have planets orbiting around them. Some of these are like our own Earth, but some are much weirder; there are planets 10 times the mass of Jupiter, planets so hot that it rains glass, and planets with three stars.

In this journey through the galaxy, we will explore the weird and wonderful world of planetary systems, and discover how we find and learn about planets far, far away.

Elisabeth Mathews is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. She specialises in the direct imaging technique for finding and characterising young exoplanets. This research allows us to understand the way that planets interact with debris discs like the asteroid belt, and how planetary systems like our own form.