[PLS] Galen Bergsten (STScI)

“Population Studies of Planet Formation & Atmospheric Evolution”

The Solar System will always be our best laboratory for planetary science. But with only eight planets, it offers a limited glimpse into the broader principles of planet formation and evolution. Thankfully, we can also leverage thousands of exoplanet detections to gain population-level insight through exoplanet demographics! In this talk, I’ll introduce several studies using data from Kepler, K2, and TESS to explore how planetary atmospheric mass loss shapes the distribution of small planets as functions of age, size, and separation. I’ll also share some recent work combining data from transit, radial velocity, and imaging surveys to constrain the formation of both small & giant planets orbiting Sun-like and M-dwarf stars. Finally, I’ll discuss the future of demographics in the face of upcoming surveys (and software!) and potential avenues to better understand the Solar System with insights from the broader planetary population.

Planetary Lunch Seminar —

Colloquia topics span the department’s planetary sciences research program, and the talks are intended to appeal to graduate students, postdocs, research scientists, and faculty with a background in planetary science. Speakers include members of the MIT community and visitors.

Contact: planetary-org@mit.edu