The exoplanet revolution
Channel: IAA - Comunicación
Date: 2021-02-25

Conference summary. The Exoplanet Revolution
The wealth and diversity of planetary systems that have now been detected modified our perspective on planet formation as a whole and more specifically our place in the Universe. It also present an opportunity of historical perspectives and an irresistible call to look for signs of life on these new worlds as a way to explore our own origins.

I will introduce the audience with the challenges and recent progresses in this new field of research and will touch upon the emergence of a new paradigm for the origins of life on Earth and its extension towards “Universal life”.

Lecturer's CV
Didier Patrick Queloz (Switzerland, February 23, 1966), a Swiss astronomer who lives and works in Geneva, has a prolific record in the search for extrasolar planets. In 2019, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Michel Mayor and James Peebles.

Didier Queloz was a doctoral student at the University of Geneva when he and Michel Mayor discovered the first exoplanet around a star similar to the Sun. Queloz performed the analysis on 51 Pegasi using radial velocity measurements (Doppler effect), which revealed the existence of a planet with an orbital period of 4.2 days. The planet, 51 Pegasi b, a gas giant type, challenged then accepted views about planetary formation.