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Posted: 10/10/19

UT Austin Professor to Discuss Research on ‘Alien Worlds’ at TAMIU Wednesday

 

Dr. William Cochran
 

University of Texas research professor and astronomer Dr. William Cochran will discuss his research on exoplanets during his lecture, “Alien Worlds: The Search for Planets Around Other Stars” Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Center for the Fine and Performing Arts Recital Hall.

Admission is free and open to the public. 

During the lecture, Cochran will speak on the search for planets outside our solar system, including his findings made through the use of a program he founded on high-precision stellar radial velocity measurement. This helped detect the reflex orbit of a star due to its planet.

Since then, Cochran and the McDonald Observatory exoplanet research group have discovered dozens of planets using both the McDonald Observatory 2.7m Harlan J. Smith Telescope and the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

Cochran has also served as co-Investigator of the NASA Kepler spacecraft mission and is very active in the K2 and TESS missions. 

Currently, Cochran serves as a research professor at The University of Texas Austin. He completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University and obtained a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Princeton University. Upon the completion of his Ph.D., he joined the McDonald Observatory planetary science research group where he spent several years studying the atmospheres of the planets in our Solar System. 

For more information, please contact the TAMIU Planetarium at 956.326.2463 or email planetarium@tamiu.edu.

TAMIU is celebrating its 50th Anniversary and its 25th Anniversary at its north Laredo campus throughout 2019-2020.  A dedicated website shares the University’s transformation from a hybrid upper-level university to a full doctoral degree-granting University. It includes a calendar of Anniversary events and more at tamiu.edu/50.

For more on the University’s story, contact the TAMIU Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at 956.326.2180, email prmis@tamiu.edu, click on tamiu.edu, follow social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube, or visit offices in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, room 268.