UofT AstroTour: The Long Path Towards Finding Habitable Exo-Worlds
Although we are still decades away from discovering life on worlds outside of our own solar system, much progress is being made today to identify the best potential candidates for hosting such life. In this talk Ryan Cloutier will discuss what we currently know about these so-called exoplanets and how we know it. He will then highlight the steps that will be taken in the not-so-distant future to further our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres and potentially even their surface conditions using extreme telescopes. All of this in hopes that one day these efforts will culminate with the probable detection of Earth-like life elsewhere in the galaxy.
About the Speaker
Ryan is a 4th year PhD candidate at the Universities of Toronto and Montréal. His research focuses on the detection and characterization of planets outside of our own solar system with a particular focus on planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune and in orbit around stars characteristically cooler than the Sun. He is a science team member of the partially Canadian-led instruments SPIRou and NIRPS. When not scouring his data for new exoplanets Ryan can often be found at the hockey rink, the baseball diamond, or in his kitchen trying to emulate some kind of South-Asian dish.
The U of T Astronomy Public Tour, or AstroTour, is a monthly event operated by the graduate students of the U of T Astronomy Department. The Tour features a public lecture by a member of the Department on topics ranging from their research to great moments in astronomical history. Following the lecture, tour-goers can peer at the night sky through the Department’s balcony and dome telescopes, or watch a planetarium show run live by astronomer. Admission to the tour is free. Seating for the lecture is on a first-come, first-served basis (doors open ten minutes before the start of the lecture), and the telescope observing is walk-in.
Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Reservations: Only required for Planetarium Shows
Organized by: Graduate Astronomy Students Association. The AstroTours are generously financed by the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Location: University of Toronto, McLennan Physical Laboratories (MP 103), 60 St George St., Toronto, ON M5S 1A7