Search for Earth-like planets to be focus of Vernon Lecture

2:10 p.m., Sept. 18, 2015--That age-old question -- are we alone? -- gets a good dose of science next month, when a NASA scientist visits the University of Delaware with an update on the 6-year-old Kepler Space Telescope Mission.

Fergal Mullally, a Kepler scientist, will sketch out the mission's quest to find other Earth-like planets when he delivers his "Chasing Shadows" talk at the annual Harcourt C. "Ace" Vernon Memorial Lecture. The event will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14 at UD’s Clayton Hall Conference Center.

Events Stories

June 5: Blue Hen 5K

University of Delaware graduates planning to attend Alumni Weekend are encouraged to register for the annual Blue Hen 5K walk and run, which will be held Sunday morning, June 5.

June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
• Through June 30: 'Saving White Clay Creek'
• July 22: WWE Heatwave Tour
• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

The Kepler mission, launched in 2009, has delivered a significant trove of data already, identifying thousands of planet candidates, including dozens similar to Earth. Research to date suggests that Earth-like planets are common in our galaxy. 

Mullally will explain how the spacecraft finds planets, discuss some of its discoveries and talk about future missions and their objectives.

Mullally holds degrees from University College Dublin in Ireland, and the University of Texas at Austin. A member of the Whole Earth Telescope headquartered at Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory, he is currently a scientist working at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center finding planets in Kepler Data.

The Vernon Memorial Lecture is free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested. The lecture is sponsored by the University’s Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center and the Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory in Greenville, Delaware. It is named for the late Harcourt C. "Ace" Vernon (1907-78), who was one of the observatory’s founders and the first chairman of its board of trustees.

Article by Beth Miller

Photo and diagram courtesy of NASA/Kepler Mission