TITLE: A suitcase full of exoplanets

SPEAKER: Jaymie Matthews
Professor and MOST Mission Scientist
University of British Columbia

2009 Jan 21 3:00 pm colloquium
NASA Ames Building N245 Auditorium 

ABSTRACT:

Size doesn't always matter.  Canada's MOST (Microvariability
& Oscillations of STars) space telescope has an aperture of
only 15 cm, and the satellite has a mass of only 54 kg.  But
this 'orbiting suitcase' has become heavily packed with
astrophysical data since leaving home.

MOST is an ultraprecise stellar photometer, a pioneer for
the French CoRoT mission which has joined it in orbit, and for
the American Kepler satellite, which is on the horizon to go
above the horizon in early 2009.  MOST's original one-year
mission was asteroseismology - probing stellar interiors via
frequency analysis of subtle surface vibrations with net
luminosity amplitudes as small as a few parts per million.
After over five years in orbit, MOST has extended its science
to exo-Earth hunting and exoplanetary atmospheres.

The results include the first meaningful measure of the albedo
of an exoplanet - a gas giant which as reflective as charcoal!

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BIOGRAPHY:  Dr. Matthews considers himself an astropaparazzo,
who eavesdrops on the music of stars with a microsatellite which
he uses as an interstellar iPod. He is a Full Professor at the
University of British Columbia, specialising in stellar pulsation
and asteroseismology, exoplanetary science, magnetic stars, and
astronomical instrumentation.  He is still trying to live down being
quoted in Discover magazine in 1987 as saying "Exploding star contains
atoms from Elvis Presley's Brain! Scientists confirm the King of Rock 'n'
Roll lived 170,000 years ago in another galaxy!"

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