Things that go "dip" in the night: from disintegrating planets to alien megastructures

Event Date:
2018-11-19T15:00:00
2018-11-19T16:00:00
Event Location:
Hennings 318
Speaker:
Megan Ansdell (UC Berkeley)
Related Upcoming Events:
Intended Audience:
Undergraduate
Local Contact:

Douglas Scott

Event Information:

The advent of space-based telescopes that provide high-precision time-series photometry, such as CoRoT and Kepler/K2, have revealed a zoo of stellar variability on timescales from minutes to months. In this talk, I will focus on classes of objects whose light curves show distinctive "dips" that can tell us a surprising amount about planet formation, evolution, and death. These include disintegrating planets, young dipper systems, likely exocomets, and unlikely alien megastructures.

Add to Calendar 2018-11-19T15:00:00 2018-11-19T16:00:00 Things that go "dip" in the night: from disintegrating planets to alien megastructures Event Information: The advent of space-based telescopes that provide high-precision time-series photometry, such as CoRoT and Kepler/K2, have revealed a zoo of stellar variability on timescales from minutes to months. In this talk, I will focus on classes of objects whose light curves show distinctive "dips" that can tell us a surprising amount about planet formation, evolution, and death. These include disintegrating planets, young dipper systems, likely exocomets, and unlikely alien megastructures. Event Location: Hennings 318