Searching for Pale Blue Dots: The Quest for Habitable Exoplanets
Abstract
Although we have not yet detected life beyond Earth, astronomers have made remarkable progress towards the eventual goal of finding an inhabited planet orbiting another star. We now know that small, temperate planets are common and we are actively designing facilities capable of detecting life elsewhere in the galaxy. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the DPS annual meeting, I will review key milestones in the history of our exploration of exoplanet habitability and highlight recent achievements such as the discovery of multiple Earth-size planets orbiting within the habitable zones of nearby stars. I will also describe the statistical advances enabled by the NASA Kepler mission and the prospects for finding dozens of new potentially habitable planets with NASA's recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #50
- Pub Date:
- October 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018DPS....5030902D