Brains Matter Episode 138 - Strange New Worlds

Professor Ray Jayawardhana is the Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics and the Steacie Fellow at the University of Toronto. He has just written a book called Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life beyond Our Solar System, and he chatted to OG about:

- some of his background, and study areas

- the changes in extra solar planet research over the past 15 years

- this history of extra solar planet discovery

- is our solar system typical?

- the diversity of what we have found

- how do gas giants exist close to their parent star?

- how has our understanding of extra solar planets changes our understanding of our own solar system?

- the different detection methods for finding extra solar planets

- the Kepler mission

- are our observations skewed because of the technological capabilities we currently have?

- how can microlensing be used?

- examples of some of the different systems discovered

- some explanations on the sizes of supermassive planets at great distances from their star

- Prof Jayawardhana’s new book

- some of the people who have discovered extra solar planets

- one of the first instances of an explanation of some of the techniques used to discover extra solar planets today

- what might the discovery of life on extra solar planets mean for us as a species?

- what kind of life might be out there?

- Prof Jayawardhana’s work on meteorites in Antarctica

Listen in and find out more.

Brains Matter is a podcast out of Australia, which features stories on science, curiosities and general knowledge. It also features interviews with various experts in science and other interesting areas.

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