by Ira Polans, Acting Program Chair

The next AAAP meeting will be on Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. in Bowen Hall (see Princeton campus maps for building and parking locations). Our guest speaker Tim Morton is an Associate Research Scholar in the Astrophysics Department at Princeton University studying the diversity of exoplanetary systems. He will talk to the club about “The Astonishing Diversity of Planetary Systems”. A meet-the-speaker dinner for AAAP members will begin at Winberries on Palmer Square at 6:00 pm. Please RSVP to S. Prasad Ganti if you will attend the dinner.

Tim Morton

From the very first detections of planets around other stars (now known as exoplanets) 20 years ago, our solar-centric understanding of planets and planetary systems—stable for hundreds of years of scientific inquiry—has been up-ended. Tim will review the history of what we have learned through the study of exoplanets, focusing especially on some surprising discoveries about the typical nature of planetary systems enabled by NASA’s Kepler mission in just the past few years. Tim will conclude with a look forward to what the future of exoplanet science may hold in the coming decade.

The final meeting of the season is in June and will be held at the NJ State Planetarium in Trenton, NJ. If you have suggestions for speakers for the 2015-2016 season, please contact the program committee: Ira Polans, S. Prasad Ganti and John Miller. You may also email suggestions to program@princetonastronomy.org.