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  1. 2010 Santander Summer School: Extrasolar Planets and Habitability

    School title: Extrasolar Planets and Habitability
    Location: Palacio de Magdalena, Santander, Cantabria, Spain
    Dates: June 21-25, 2010
    Deadline: Closing date for NAI scholarship applications – March 31, 2010.

    Overview:
    A week of lectures from international experts, plus round-table discussions, student projects, night-sky observations, and a field trip to a nearby site of astrobiological interest. On-site accommodation and all meals are provided at the Santander campus of the Spanish national university, UIMP.

    Scholarships covering travel costs, school fees, accommodation and meals are provided by NAI for students studying at U.S. institutions. Additional opportunities are available for students of some other nations.

    School Directors:

    • Carl B. Pilcher, Director, NASA Astrobiology Institute, U.S.A.
    • Álvaro Giménez Cañete, Director, Centro de Astrobiología, Spain

    School Secretary:

    • Olga Prieto Ballesteros, Centro de Astrobiología

    Program

    Click here to download the school program

    Confirmed Lecturers:

    • Dr. Jack Lissauer, Space Sciences and Astrobiology Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California and science co-investigator on NASA’s Kepler space telescope mission. One year after launch in March, 2009 Kepler is discovering numerous new exoplanets using the transit method.
    • Professor Eduardo Martin, Stellar Astrophysics and Exoplanets Laboratory, Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, and University of Central Florida, co-discoverer of the first brown dwarf (Teide Pleiades 1), studies the interface between high mass planets, brown dwarfs, and cool stars, and the development of the next generation infrared spectrographs for detection of habitable planets around nearby M dwarfs.
    • Professor Victoria (Vikki) Meadows, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle and Principal Investigator of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) Team of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. VPL scientists are building computer simulated Earth-sized virtual planets that may be used to test the observational capabilities of future space telescopes.
    • Professor Michel Mayor, Université de Genève – “l’homme qui a contredit Aristote” [Aristotle] – co-discoverer of the first exoplanet (51 Pegasi) detected by the radial velocity method and leader of the Extrasolar Planet Search Programmes, Observatoire de Genève, Switzerland.

    Summer School Scholars

    Click here to view the list of Summer School Scholars.

    Summer School Poster

    Download the poster here