ASTRO Colloquium with Jason Rowe

Event Date:
2026-10-05T16:00:00
2026-10-05T17:00:00
Event Location:
HENN 318
Speaker:
Jason Rowe (Bishop's University)
Related Upcoming Events:
Astronomy Colloquia
Intended Audience:
Everyone
Local Contact:

Brett Gladman (gladman@astro.ubc.ca)

All are welcome to this event!

Event Information:

Title: From Stellar Contamination to a Billion Light Curves: Pandora, Roman, and the Path to 100,000 Transiting Exoplanets

Abstract:

The coming decade marks a transformative era in exoplanetary science, defined by a shift from individual discovery to comprehensive demographic analysis and precision atmospheric characterization. This presentation outlines two missions that are improving our understanding of planetary systems: the Pandora SmallSat mission and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. I will discuss Canadian contributions to both projects and additional opportunities for the community.

Launched on January 5, 2026, Pandora serves as a pathfinder for atmospheric transmission spectroscopy. By conducting simultaneous visible photometry and near-infrared spectroscopy, Pandora addresses a dominant challenge in current transmission studies: stellar systematics. I will discuss how Pandora is disentangling starspots and faculae from true planetary signals, establishing a methodology for correcting stellar contamination. This work is essential for validating the atmospheric features from flagship facilities such as JWST.

Launched on August 30, 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now in commissioning en route to the Sun-Earth L2 point, where it will, no doubt, revolutionize exoplanet demographics. Through the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, Roman is projected to detect over 100 000 transiting exoplanets and thousands of microlensing events. Realizing this yield is a significant computational and statistical challenge. I will present the status of the Transits in the Roman Exoplanet Survey (TRExS) and the Roman Transit Search Infrastructure (RTSI) and the key obstacles this effort must overcome.

This research is supported by Digital Research Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency's ROSS program.

Bio:

Dr. Jason Rowe received his PhD at the University of British Columbia for his work on measuring the reflectively of extra-solar planets using photometric measurements from the Canadian MOST Satellite. After his PhD Dr. Rowe joined the Kepler team as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow contributing towards the first Kepler discoveries and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal for his work on measuring fundamental parameters of exoplanets. Dr. Rowe then joined the SETI Institute as a research scientist and member of Kepler Science office and his continued work on exoplanets lead to the discovery of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of main-sequence stars and bulk validation of 812 extrasolar planets. During his tenure at SETI he was awarded his second NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal. Dr. Rowe then joined the JWST NIRISS Instrument team at Université de Montréal to develop techniques and tools to measure the atmospheres on extrasolar planets. Dr. Rowe is currently a Canada Research Chair in Extrasolar Planet Astrophysics, his current research goals are to determine what properties make a planet ‘Earth-like’ and whether there is life beyond Earth. He has authored and co-authored over 200 publications with over 16000 total citations.

Learn more:

 

 

Add to Calendar 2026-10-05T16:00:00 2026-10-05T17:00:00 ASTRO Colloquium with Jason Rowe Event Information: Title: From Stellar Contamination to a Billion Light Curves: Pandora, Roman, and the Path to 100,000 Transiting Exoplanets Abstract: The coming decade marks a transformative era in exoplanetary science, defined by a shift from individual discovery to comprehensive demographic analysis and precision atmospheric characterization. This presentation outlines two missions that are improving our understanding of planetary systems: the Pandora SmallSat mission and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. I will discuss Canadian contributions to both projects and additional opportunities for the community. Launched on January 5, 2026, Pandora serves as a pathfinder for atmospheric transmission spectroscopy. By conducting simultaneous visible photometry and near-infrared spectroscopy, Pandora addresses a dominant challenge in current transmission studies: stellar systematics. I will discuss how Pandora is disentangling starspots and faculae from true planetary signals, establishing a methodology for correcting stellar contamination. This work is essential for validating the atmospheric features from flagship facilities such as JWST. Launched on August 30, 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now in commissioning en route to the Sun-Earth L2 point, where it will, no doubt, revolutionize exoplanet demographics. Through the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, Roman is projected to detect over 100 000 transiting exoplanets and thousands of microlensing events. Realizing this yield is a significant computational and statistical challenge. I will present the status of the Transits in the Roman Exoplanet Survey (TRExS) and the Roman Transit Search Infrastructure (RTSI) and the key obstacles this effort must overcome. This research is supported by Digital Research Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency's ROSS program. Bio: Dr. Jason Rowe received his PhD at the University of British Columbia for his work on measuring the reflectively of extra-solar planets using photometric measurements from the Canadian MOST Satellite. After his PhD Dr. Rowe joined the Kepler team as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow contributing towards the first Kepler discoveries and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal for his work on measuring fundamental parameters of exoplanets. Dr. Rowe then joined the SETI Institute as a research scientist and member of Kepler Science office and his continued work on exoplanets lead to the discovery of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of main-sequence stars and bulk validation of 812 extrasolar planets. During his tenure at SETI he was awarded his second NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal. Dr. Rowe then joined the JWST NIRISS Instrument team at Université de Montréal to develop techniques and tools to measure the atmospheres on extrasolar planets. Dr. Rowe is currently a Canada Research Chair in Extrasolar Planet Astrophysics, his current research goals are to determine what properties make a planet ‘Earth-like’ and whether there is life beyond Earth. He has authored and co-authored over 200 publications with over 16000 total citations. Learn more: See his research profile and bio from Bishop's University View his personal website here: https://www.jasonrowe.org/  See his page at the Trottier Institute website: https://exoplanetes.umontreal.ca/en/team-member/jason-rowe/  Read this article from Bishop's U news, "Dr. Rowe ranked 14 among Canada’s Top Physics Scientists"     Event Location: HENN 318