Public presentation about the discovery of exoplanets at UPEI on March 26

Dr. Andrew Cumming of McGill University's physics department will give a public presentation called In Search of New Worlds: The Discovery and Characterization of Exoplanets on Friday, March 26, from 3 to 5 p.m., at UPEI.

Cumming's talk will take place in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium (Room 242) in Don and Marion McDougall Hall.

The last decade has seen a revolution in our understanding of planetary systems, with the birth of the new field of exoplanets, says Cumming. Almost 400 planets orbiting other stars have been discovered, with masses from a few times that of Earth to ten times the mass of Jupiter, and orbital periods of only a few days to more than ten years. These discoveries are answering the question of whether solar systems such as our own are common in the galaxy, and the diverse properties of the known exoplanets are challenging our ideas of the physics of planet formation and evolution.

During his lecture, he will describe the techniques by which these planets are being discovered and characterized, summarize the latest discoveries and what is being learned from them, and look forward to the exciting new discoveries to expect in the coming decade and beyond.

Cumming is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at McGill University, working in theoretical astrophysics. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in December 2000, where he worked with Lars Bildsten. He then spent a year as a post doc at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) in Santa Barbara before moving to the University of California, Santa Cruz, as a Hubble Fellow. He joined the McGill Department of Physics in September 2004. He has been a Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Cosmology and Gravity program since 2004, and was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.

For more information, contact the UPEI Department of Physics at (902) 566-0491.