Observing Exoplanets with James Webb Space Telescope

With Dr. Clampin Goddard Space Flight Center NASA 

The search for exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, and characterization of their properties has seen increasing success over the last few years.

In excess of 500 exoplanets are known and Kepler has about 1000 additional candidates. Recently, progress has been made in direct imaging planets, both from the ground and in space.

This presentation will discuss the history and current state of technology used for such discoveries, and highlight the new capabilities that will be enabled by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Presenter Dr. Mark Clampin is the James Webb Space Telescope Observatory Project Scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA. He is a Co-Investigator on the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) science where he served as ACS Detector Scientist with responsibility for delivery of the ACS flight focal planes.  Dr. Clampin is the Principal Investigator of the Exosolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC), a technology demonstration for exoplanet missions (TDEM).  Dr. Clampin is a member of the team that discovered that recently exoplanet Formalhaut-B with ACS.