Star Talk

Malcolm started his speech by saying that his first souvenir of his space career was the sight of the Sputnik flight and that at the age of 5 he decided to be an astronomer.

Since then, and after many studies and experiences, he has followed this decision and is currently working at ESA and is in charge of the projects related to exo-planets (planets outside the solar system).

Malcolm briefly retraced the story of planets ( which means wanderers in ancient Greek): the first six planets have been known since antiquity and the other three of our solar system, Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846) and Pluto (1930), have been discovered more recently. However, these nine planets are only a tiny percentage of the entire number of planets that might be present in the universe considering that there are roughly 200 billion suns.

The search for planets has been a constant theme in astronomy and a breakthrough discovery was made in Switzerland in 1985 with the individuation of the first exo-planet. Since then, and thank to improving techniques, such as RV or occultation, 350 exo-planets have been identified.

However, the biggest problem related with these planets is the fact that the are gas-giants and do not have any solid surface and are thus totally unsuitable for life. In order to find planets similar to earth where life has we know might be present, the ESA has launched two years ago a space telescope which allows a better search for potential candidates.

The search has already afforded some results and a potential candidate has been found at 425 light years from earth. This planet has however got a "minor" problem: as it stands too close to its star it has an average temperature of 1500°C.

Malcolm ended his talk by saying that the hunt goes on and that, after a planet has been found, it is checked for the different parameters that might indicate the possibility of the presence of life such as: oxygen, water or signs of biological activity (methane).

The talk was followed by some questions concerning the distance of these potential "earth twins" and the costs of these types of research. Patricia then thanked Malcolm on behalf of the Club.

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