| Beyond Eta Earth: Exoplanets as a Window on the History and Habitability of Planetary Systems |
| Rebekah I. Dawson |
|
Pennsylvania State University
USA |
| Over the past couple decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered orbiting other stars. The exoplanets discovered to date exhibit a wide variety of orbital and compositional properties; most are dramatically different from the planets in our own Solar System. The search for a true earth twin continues, but the diverse sample of exoplanets discovered to date still have much to teach about the history and habitability of planetary systems. I will present what we've learned from observations and simulations about their formation and evolution and discuss how we can best study future individual potentially habitable planets in the context of their planetary systems. |