by Ira Polans

The November meeting of the AAAP will be held on the 12th at 7:30 PM in the auditorium of Peyton Hall on the Princeton University campus. The talk is on The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite by Professor Joshua Winn of Princeton University.

We all know that 8 planets—or maybe 9 —orbit the Sun. Did you also know that astronomers have identified 4,000 planets orbiting stars elsewhere in the Galaxy? Most of them were discovered by a space telescope called Kepler that stopped operating last year. Now, a new space telescope is continuing the search: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. Professor Winn will describe the reasons why TESS was launched, and the results that have been achieved to date. These results include not only newly discovered planets, but also new insights into stellar pulsations, new observations of a star being shredded by a black hole, and new evidence for a system of comets orbiting the nearby star Beta Pictoris.

Two changes were made to the 10 minute talks this season. First, the talk will be given after the intermission. Second, we are instituting a 10 minute limit. Since we want to keep the talks to 10 minutes, the speaker will be given a 90 second warning to wrap up the talk. If you’re interested in giving a 10 minute talk for our November meeting or a future meeting please contact Rex at or Ira at program@princetonastonomy.org.

There will be a meet the speaker dinner at 6 PM at Winberie’s in Palmer Square prior to the meeting. If you are interested in attending please email me by noon on November 12.