John M Brewer

Title: The 100 Earths Project

Bio: Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University

Abstract: Finding new planets around other stars is now a common occurence, with almost 4,000 planets around 2,500 stars discovered since 1995. It has been far more difficult to identify small rocky planets like the Earth. Rarer still are those small planets orbiting at a comfortable distance from their star where life like our own might form. That is about to change. Newly commissioned instruments have the necessary precision to detect Earth mass planets orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. One such instrument is EXPRES on the Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. I will tell you about EXPRES and a program we have already begun to identify 100 Earth mass planets around nearby stars.