1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,940 Tale of Two telescopes: Exoplanets. Hubble Space Telescope-- WFIRST. 2 00:00:06,140 --> 00:00:12,450 I'm Aki Roberge and I'm an astrophysicist at NASA's Godda rd Space Flight Center. 3 00:00:12,450 --> 00:00:16,920 Hi I'm Nikole Lewis I'm an assistant professor at Cornell University and I'm 4 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:22,890 an exoplanetary scientist. The very first project that I ever did when I 5 00:00:22,890 --> 00:00:27,390 started graduate school was used data from the Hubble Space Telescope and I 6 00:00:27,390 --> 00:00:33,260 checked my records and that was 1997. So I am definitely what you would call 7 00:00:33,260 --> 00:00:38,670 "Hubble hugger," one of the astronomers who had NASA's Great observatories like 8 00:00:38,670 --> 00:00:42,480 Hubble around pretty much for their entire careers. So I've been working with 9 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:49,020 the Hubble Space Telescope for almost a decade now actually using it to study 10 00:00:49,020 --> 00:00:54,030 exoplanet atmospheres. I think I first started working on WFIRST about, let's see it 11 00:00:54,030 --> 00:00:59,879 was about four, four- five years ago now and so I'm involved with one of the 12 00:00:59,879 --> 00:01:06,060 teams that is --the science teams for the coronagraph instrument. So I've been 13 00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:11,850 working on WFIRST now for a little over four years. I started back in about 14 00:01:11,850 --> 00:01:17,369 2015 we're getting into the fifth year now when they started the science 15 00:01:17,369 --> 00:01:20,490 investigation teams. It's really important to understand that Hubble 16 00:01:20,490 --> 00:01:25,439 wasn't designed to study exoplanets at all we didn't even know about them that 17 00:01:25,439 --> 00:01:30,450 they existed when Hubble was designed and launched, so the fact that we can 18 00:01:30,450 --> 00:01:33,990 study exoplanets with Hubble is pretty awesome. With Hubble we're really looking 19 00:01:33,990 --> 00:01:38,400 at these planets that are on short-period orbits that are sometimes 20 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:42,750 called transiting exoplanets and often we're looking at light that's passing 21 00:01:42,750 --> 00:01:47,040 through these planets atmospheres as they pass in front of their host star. 22 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:51,689 WFIRST on the other hand is an exoplanet discovery machine, it's the machine you'd 23 00:01:51,689 --> 00:01:56,310 use like like Kepler was, to like just find out that hey there's a planet 24 00:01:56,310 --> 00:02:00,560 around that star. Now with WFIRST it's really going to leverage different 25 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:04,979 methodologies to look at exoplanets and it's gonna look at planets that are much 26 00:02:04,979 --> 00:02:09,810 farther away from their host stars. It has two different methods which one is 27 00:02:09,810 --> 00:02:13,470 microlensing that will help us to complete the census 28 00:02:13,470 --> 00:02:18,990 of exoplanets in our galaxy and the other will be enabled through the corona 29 00:02:18,990 --> 00:02:23,310 coronagraphic instrument which will actually take images of planets that are you know 30 00:02:23,310 --> 00:02:27,360 a little bit farther away from their stars compared with the ones that we use 31 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:32,850 Hubble to study. What I've learned from working on Hubble is that, first of all 32 00:02:32,850 --> 00:02:39,000 it's sort of expect the unexpected, and you can use a tool that was built for 33 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,990 one thing if it's you know a general purpose tool like NASA's Great 34 00:02:42,990 --> 00:02:47,880 observatories were, you can use it for other things. Hubble was never designed 35 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:52,500 to look at exoplanets and so we always have to use it in a very creative way to 36 00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:56,430 do the science we want to do. WFIRST of course is getting designed to study 37 00:02:56,430 --> 00:02:59,580 exoplanets from the get-go but I think we're still going to have to find 38 00:02:59,580 --> 00:03:05,060 creative ways to use WFIRSTto better understand exoplanets. 39 00:03:05,060 --> 00:03:14,660 Explroe NASA.