November 2013 was the third time I met with the United States this year, and this time we saw each other for more than a few days. The first destination: San Francisco, or more precisely, Mountain View. The headquarters of NASA Ames is located there, and they were hosting the second Kepler science conference. Despite a worthy try by the American politicians to interfere with the conference by shutting down the government only weeks before, the science meeting took place as scheduled and we spent a week discussing results using the Kepler satelite's data, and their implications on exoplanet research.
Being together with a few hundred colleagues from all over the world to discuss science always has something inspirational to it. The conference's public lecture was given by prof. Frank Drake, known to astronomers and non-astronomers alike as the person behind the Drake equation. This equation, which he failed to mention at any point during his talk, predicts the chance of having life on another planet by multiplying factors such as the amount of stars, the amount of planets and the amount of planets which can support life. I share a sense of optimism with most exoplanet researchers that there is likely life somewhere out there, and that we might be able to detect it in the not too distant future. Or to paraphrase Frank Drake, perhaps we will soon connect to the intergalactic internet.
As with any conference, you need something remarkable to happen to make it worth remembering. This time the price went to my advisor, whose rental car turned out to be a white Mustang (with remarkably little space in the back seats).
After a week of breakfast waffles on plastic plates at the hotel, and presenting our IDs every morning to get access to the sacred grounds of NASA, I took the plane to Boston to visit MIT. For a month, I stayed at prof. Sara Seager's research group. She is no doubt one of the most known and visionary exoplanet scientists (while I was there, I was at a reception organised to celebrate her recent MacArthur price) and she leads a group with a strong focus on that one big goal: to one day find life. It was her book (and more specifically, the preface she wrote for it) that originally drew me into the field of exoplanet research, which has later led me to pursue a PhD in Denmark.
Her group is not the only one at MIT working on exoplanets. While she is connected to the Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Science department, another group led by prof. Joshua Winn is part of the physics department, and my other thesis advisor (not the Mustang one) is currently working there. Many great people in both research groups, and, as hard as it can be to believe, only a few kilometers away are even more and equally brilliant exoplanet scientists working at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard. With such a high density of exoplanet researchers in Boston, I had many long and fruitful discussions that made my stay more than worth the while.
I also had the chance to present our work on the exoplanet Kepler-410 (formerly known as KOI-42) at Harvard and at MIT. We discovered the exoplanet Kepler-410A b to be around a bright star in a slightly eccentric orbit, and we can pinpoint the rotation axis of the star to roughly be in the same plane as the exoplanet's orbit. This has implications for planet formation theories (both star and planet form out of the same initial material), and we could do so using asteroseismology (the use of pulsations of the star to derive its properties) as a unique tool. About a year of my life has gone into this work and I can now pridely say that our paper describing this has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal!
I should say that apart from being an environment filled with clever people, Boston (or more specifically, Cambridge, as the area is really called) has a beautiful appearance during Fall. Despite a few rainy days, I have mostly enjoyed my thirty minutes of morning walk from The Antrim House to the university. Close to where I was staying, the nice staff of Dwelltime served the best Latte. I thank everyone who I met for making my stay so nice, in particular to my Australian friends Erin and Brandon for my first Thanksgiving, Kat for her birthday party and Roberto for the Spanish party which made me feel somewhat less-than-perfect on my plane back to Aarhus.
Partying the day before traveling has become some sort of tradition. As I am writing this, I am on the train to Copenhagen recovering from the Annual Astro Christmas Lunch with my colleagues. One needs some traditions, and my head tells me yesterday was an enjoyable day. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to fly home. Belgium, let's meet again!
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