Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers; Ep. 14 Bruce Macintosh (part 2)

08/01/24 • 14 min

Hollywood 🎥 vs. Kepler-22 b 🪐 Jessie returns to her chat with Dr. Bruce Macintosh, Director of the University of California Observatories, and he explains why Kepler-22 b is his LEAST favorite exoplanet—even though its 2011 discovery made international news and was featured in the HBO Max series "Raised by Wolves."

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Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers; Ep 13, Bruce Macintosh (Part 1)

Exoplanet Trifecta: Seeing and Believing 🤩👀🔭🪐🪐🪐 What is it like to spend eight years chasing down hundreds of possible planets that turn out to be false positives, and then discover three planets at once? It takes a special kind of believer—and skeptic—to find planets using the direct imaging method. Dr. Bruce Macintosh, Director of the University of California Observatories, describes how he became a believer in the HR 8799 system. Also in this episode: Bruce's LEAST favorite exoplanet!

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Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers; Ep. 15 Ashley Chontos (part 1)

Worth the Wait 🛰️⏳📅🪐 NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Telescope found its first planet candidate in 2009. Ten years later, KOI-4.01 was finally confirmed as an exoplanet by a team led by Dr. Ashley Chontos. The confirmation provided some bittersweet closure for the Kepler mission and also brought Ashley fame and fortune 😎 (well, for astronomers, anyway 🤓). In this episode, Jessie chats with Ashley about the series of fortunate events that led to the discovery—and also her favorite fictional planet!