Weekly Space Hangout

Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 21, 2018: Dr. Jessie Christiansen and “Exoplanet Explorers”

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

Special Guests:
Dr. Jessie Christiansen is a Caltech staff scientist and co-founder (with UC Santa Cruz astronomer Dr. Ian Crossfield) of the citizen-scientist project Exoplanet Explorers which examines data from the Kepler K2 mission.

In April, 2017, Exoplanet Explorers detected a 5-planet system with the potential for 6th planet as well. This system, named K2-138, is unique because it is the first multi-planet system to be discovered entirely by a group of citizen scientists. A paper titled The K2-138 System: A Near-resonant Chain of Five Sub-Neptune Planets Discovered by Citizen Scientists has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. You can access the published version of the article here: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/84280/1/Christiansen_2018_AJ_155_57.pdf

You can also learn more about Dr. Christiansen by visiting her webpage.

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Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Here's a link to my Mastodon account.

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