BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:UW-Madison-Physics-Events
BEGIN:VEVENT
SEQUENCE:0
UID:UW-Physics-Event-4356
DTSTART:20161110T213000Z
DTEND:20161110T230000Z
DTSTAMP:20260414T051536Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20161107T150625Z
LOCATION:4421 Sterling Hall\, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM. Talk begins 
 at 3:45 PM
SUMMARY:How Can Observations of Earth Guide the Search of Exoplanets?\
 , Astronomy Colloquium\, Tristan L’Ecuyer\, UW Atmospheric and Ocean
 ic Sciences
DESCRIPTION:Recent advances in satellite-based astrophysics-focused te
 lescopes have begun an exciting new era of exoplanet exploration in wh
 ich it may soon be possible to directly image exoplanets orbiting the 
 sun’s nearest neighbors.  The spectroscopic surveys enabled by such 
 technology offer the potential to move beyond detecting and inferring 
 the mass and orbital characteristics of exoplanets to characterize the
 ir atmospheric and surface characteristics and\, ask whether some may 
 feature the building blocks required to support life.  Considerable de
 velopment is\, however\, required before direct imaging algorithms are
  sufficiently mature to make optimal use of such technology.  But NASA
  has also been collecting detailed observations of Earth since the pio
 neering work of some University of Wisconsin professors in the 1950’
 s.  The subsequent five decades of satellite-based Earth observations 
 offers an under-tapped wealth of information to guide the development 
 of new algorithms to identify water\, ice\, cloud\, and vegetation sig
 natures in direct imagery of exoplanets.  This presentation will intro
 duce a subset of modern Earth observations that are particularly relev
 ant to this problem in the context of the Earth science applications t
 hey address.  Progress toward incorporating this knowledge into a new 
 framework for searching for Earth-like spectral signatures in direct e
 xoplanet imagery will be described.  Preliminary examples demonstrate 
 the utility of the resulting `Earth simulator’ to characterize the s
 pectral signatures of Earth-like planets and establish the optimal ban
 d passes\, spectral resolution\, and minimum signal-to-noise ratio of 
 proposed observing systems for identifying key features in these spect
 ra.  These initial results will be placed in the broader context of th
 e rapidly evolving\, emerging exoplanet imaging field.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=4356
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR