Daniel Apai's Blog on Exoplanet Exploration and Astrobiology
After two hours of hike up on a rocky trail in the Italian Alps, finally I stand at an elevation just above 2,500 meters, staring at a breathtaking and unique mountain range, the Dolomites, that holds an exciting clue to the habitability of our planet. With gigantic sharp white-gray peaks emerging from the lush green of Alpine meadows, these mountains rise where the…
Mikayla Mace is a UA journalism graduate student who is writing a nice series of article on our Earths in Other Solar Systems work. She has just posted a piece on our Genesis Database, the mother of all planet formation simulations, featuring Gijs Mulders and Fred Ciesla. The Genesis Database will help us understand how habitable earth-like…
By Daniel Apai Includes interview with Nick Siegler and Shawn Domagal-Goldman Over the weekend, at the Hilton on the San Diego Bay, a small group met to speak about the present and future of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration program. To someone not in the field of exoplanets the talks and debates may have resembled science fiction: giant space…
News and updates on NASA’s Earths in Other Systems Project from PI Daniel Apai. May 10, 2015. Sunday early morning with a coffee in my hand, sitting next to giant blooming Saguaro cacti and citrus trees in Tucson with the spectacular Catalina mountains in the background. Two tiny hummingbirds angrily hover around each other in the air,…
Two weeks ago NASA has announced its new Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, which may prove to be a major change in the way NASA will fund exoplanet science in the future. Our UA-led team was part of the first selection and I, the principal investigator of our project, joined the program’s two-day kick-off meeting at…
My Extrasolar Storms talk, given at the Hubble 25 Symposium, is now available online – check it out if you like a mix of the Hubble Space Telescope, iron raindrops, gigantic storms, and methods to map extrasolar planets: https://tinyurl.com/pjjbyv4
I am often asked to recommend books on astrobiology, habitable exoplanets, and extraterrestrial life. There are many great books in these exciting fields, but there are a number of stand-outs that I highly recommend. Below is a gradually growing list of my favorite ones. Is your favorite book missing? Add other book suggestions in the…
The 2014 year has brought much excitement in the field of extrasolar planets and 2015 is set to be at least as exciting as the past year: new powerful adaptive optics systems are searching the northern and southern skies for new exoplanets and Kepler2 should start bringing a large number of new planet candidates! Just…
In July I spent four exciting days at the Institut de Planetologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG). Set in a picturesque green valley in the Alps where the rivers Drac and Ilsere merge, this scenic little town in Southern France is well-known for planet hunters. The Grenoble group I visited is one of the world…
If you live in the US, you will remember the great February snowstorm of 2010 – which entered history as “Snowmageddon” – that covered the East Coast in thick snow and paralyzed cities and airports. It was one of the largest winter storms in recent history. Yet, the same year in the outer solar system…