2009.05.19
Debra Fischer and the Alpha Centauri Project are Covered in SEED Magazine
SEED Magazine interviews Dr. Debra Fischer about her work attempting to find exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system using a telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The article can be viewed on the SEED Magazine website at http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_long_shot/.
2009.05.03
Mama and the Tweets Perform at a Bar in Berkeley
If you're curious what Dr. Debra Fischer does in her "spare time", you can get a glimpse of it by watching her perform on the drums at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KnPyQaIOXs. In just 3 days, these ladies wrote an original song and picked up the instruments they are playing for the first time. This was a fun fundraiser for Girls Rock Camp.
2008.08.22
Exoplanet Task Force Publishes Report Online
The Exoplanet Task Force report is now available on the
NSF website at http://www.nsf.gov/mps/ast/aaac.jsp. This report outlines a 15-year strategy to identify
earth-like planets in the habitable zones of bright, nearby stars; to determine the architecture of planetary systems and to determine when, how, and in what environment planets are formed. The exoplanet
task force was commissioned by the Astronomy and
Astrophysics Advisory Committee, and chaired by
Jonathon Lunine (Univ of Arizona). Professor Debra Fischer
served on the task force and was one of the authors of the
report.
2008.07.14
Space Interferometry Simulations Accomplished
Members of The SFSU Exoplanet Group and several collaborators recently took part in a project to detect multiple-planet systems in simulated data from the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). Our team developed a GUI to fit multiple planets with a Levenburg-Marquardt fitting algorithm that fit astrometric and radial velocity data simultaneously. The team, led by P.I. Debra Fischer (SFSU), included Thomas Ader (Caltech), Rory Barnes (University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory), Joe Barranco (SFSU), Matt Giguere (SFSU), Phil Gregory (University of British Columbia) and Genya Takeda (Northwestern University). For more information, see the Michelson Science Center Site about the project.
2007.11.06
First Five-Planet System Discovered
After 18 years of observations and 650 individual Doppler measurements at Lick and Keck observatories, we report the discovery of the first quintuple planet system. The star 55 Rho Cancri, already known to host four extrasolar planets, also has a newly-discovered Saturn-mass planet in the habitable zone, where water can exist in liquid form.
The published paper can be found on the NASA ADS site or here "Five Planets Orbiting 55 Cancri".
2005.06
149026: A New Transiting Planet
We report a new transiting planet discovered using data from the Keck, Subaru and Fairborn Observatories. Please see the Press Release for details and contact information. The planet, which orbits the star HD149026, is the densest yet known to transit a bright star, and appears to have a massive core. For further information, please see:
- Planet and Star Data.
- Research Paper to appear in Astrophysical Journal. (postscript version)
- Press Release with full contact information.
- Images and Graphics of HD149026 System
- Comparison with other Transiting Planets
- Article in Sky & Telescope by R. Naeye
- SFSU Press Release by D. Springer
