Scientific Colloquium
February 20, 2009


"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.


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