Scientific Colloquium
February 20, 2009
DRAKE DEMING
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
"The EPOXI/EPOCh
Investigation of Transiting Extrasolar Planets"
Following its prime mission to
Comet Tempel-1, the Deep Impact spacecraft has been re-targeted to
encounter comet Hartley-2 in October 2010. This extended Deep
Impact mission has been re-named EPOXI, and it combines two distinct
scientific components. In addition to comet science, the
EPOCh (Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization)
investigation is using the CCD camera on the spacecraft to perform
precision photometry of six giant transiting extrasolar planet systems,
during the cruise to the comet. EPOCh is looking for smaller
planets in these systems, and we are sensitive to planets as small as
Earth in some cases. EPOCh also took the opportunity to observe
our home planet, obtaining multi-spectral time-resolved light curves of
the "Earth as an extrasolar planet". An analysis of EPOCh's
multi-wavelength rotational light curves of Earth demonstrate that
alien observers could infer the presence of oceans and continents on
Earth, and in principle we can do the same for extrasolar Earth-like
planets when they are discovered and characterized using high-contrast
imaging.