Alan P. Boss (born in Lakewood, Ohio [1] ) is a United States theoretical astrophysicist, astronomer, and planetary scientist at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science. [2]
Alan P. Boss (born in Lakewood, Ohio [1] ) is a United States theoretical astrophysicist, astronomer, and planetary scientist at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science. [2]
Educated in the Physics Departments at the University of South Florida and the University of California, Santa Barbara, Boss is a prominent scientist in stellar and planetary system formation and the study of extrasolar planets who has made highly cited contributions to the study of gas giant planet and binary star system formation. He has published hundreds of articles in these areas and related fields. [3] He is currently a Staff Member at the Carnegie Institution for Science in the Earth and Planets Laboratory. [4]
Boss was selected to join the NASA Science Working Group for the Kepler Mission and the NASA External Independent Readiness Board for the Exoplanet Exploration Program, both charged with the detection and characterization of nearby habitable Earth-like planets. He currently chairs the Technology Assessment Committee for NASA's Exoplanet Exoploration Program. [5]
Boss received a NASA Group Achievement Award in 2008 for his role in the Astrobiology Roadmap. [6] Boss is a fellow of numerous scientific academies and societies, e.g., the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union. [7] Minor Planet (29137) is named Alanboss (1987). [8]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
 | This article about an Ohioan is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
   | This United States astronomer article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Astrobiology, is a scientific field within the life and environmental sciences that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe by investigating its deterministic conditions and contingent events. As a discipline, astrobiology is founded on the premise that life may exist beyond Earth.
Extraterrestrial life, alien life, or colloquially aliens, is life which does not originate from Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms such as prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humans. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology.
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not then recognized as such. The first confirmation of the detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, first detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. According to statistics from the NASA Exoplanet Archive, As of 21 August 2024, there are 5,747 confirmed exoplanets in 4,289 planetary systems, with 962 systems having more than one planet. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to discover more exoplanets, and to give more insight into their traits, such as their composition, environmental conditions, and potential for life.
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the term: the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young protostar orbited by a protoplanetary disk. Planets grow in this disk by the gradual accumulation of material driven by gravity, a process called accretion.
Robert Paul Butler is an astronomer and staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who searches for extrasolar planets.
Planetary geology, alternatively known as astrogeology or exogeology, is a planetary science discipline concerned with the geology of celestial bodies such as planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and meteorites. Although the geo- prefix typically indicates topics of or relating to Earth, planetary geology is named as such for historical and convenience reasons; due to the types of investigations involved, it is closely linked with Earth-based geology. These investigations are centered around the composition, structure, processes, and history of a celestial body.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) was established in 1998 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions." In December 2019 the institute's activities were suspended.
Wesley T. Huntress, Jr. is an American space scientist. An astrochemist and space scientist, Huntress worked for about twenty years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During the 1980s, he was also a video game designer, producing games for Apple computers. In 1988, Huntress moved to NASA headquarters, where he would serve in several positions, including Director of NASA's Solar System Exploration Division and Associate Administrator for Space Science.
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. Environments do not need to contain life to be considered habitable nor are accepted habitable zones (HZ) the only areas in which life might arise.
Sara Seager is a Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist. She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is known for her work on extrasolar planets and their atmospheres. She is the author of two textbooks on these topics, and has been recognized for her research by Popular Science, Discover Magazine, Nature, and TIME Magazine. Seager was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 citing her theoretical work on detecting chemical signatures on exoplanet atmospheres and developing low-cost space observatories to observe planetary transits.
A Super-Earth is a type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to the mass of the planet, and so does not imply anything about the surface conditions or habitability. The alternative term "gas dwarfs" may be more accurate for those at the higher end of the mass scale, although "mini-Neptunes" is a more common term.
The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. The institution is headquartered in Washington, D.C. As of June 30, 2020, the Institution's endowment was valued at $926.9 million. In 2018 the expenses for scientific programs and administration were $96.6 million. Eric Isaacs is president of the institution.
An Earth analog, also called an Earth analogue, Earth twin, or second Earth, is a planet or moon with environmental conditions similar to those found on Earth. The term Earth-like planet is also used, but this term may refer to any terrestrial planet.
Kepler-9b is one of the first planets discovered outside the solar system (exoplanets) by NASA's Kepler Mission. It revolves around the star Kepler-9 within the constellation Lyra. Kepler-9b is the largest of three planets detected in the Kepler system by transit method; its mass is roughly half that of the planet Saturn, and it is the largest planet in its system. Kepler-9b and Kepler-9c display a phenomenon called orbital resonance, in which gravitational pull from each planet alters and stabilizes the orbit of the other. The planet's discovery was announced on August 26, 2010.
Gliese 581g was a candidate exoplanet postulated to orbit within the Gliese 581 system, twenty light-years from Earth. It was discovered by the Lick–Carnegie Exoplanet Survey, and was the sixth planet claimed to orbit the star; however, its existence could not be confirmed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) / High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) survey team, and was ultimately refuted. It was thought to be near the middle of the habitable zone of its star, meaning it could sustain liquid water—a necessity for all known life—on its surface, if there are favorable atmospheric conditions on the planet.
The Lick–Carnegie Exoplanet Survey (LCES) is a search for exoplanets using the Keck I optical telescope of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The survey is sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. The survey comprises a decade of observations. The survey is led by Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California at Santa Cruz, and R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution.
Planetary science is the scientific study of planets, celestial bodies and planetary systems and the processes of their formation. It studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, aiming to determine their composition, dynamics, formation, interrelations and history. It is a strongly interdisciplinary field, which originally grew from astronomy and Earth science, and now incorporates many disciplines, including planetary geology, cosmochemistry, atmospheric science, physics, oceanography, hydrology, theoretical planetary science, glaciology, and exoplanetology. Allied disciplines include space physics, when concerned with the effects of the Sun on the bodies of the Solar System, and astrobiology.
Kepler-47 is a binary star system in the constellation Cygnus located about 3,420 light-years away from Earth. The stars have three exoplanets, all of which orbit both stars at the same time, making this a circumbinary system. The first two planets announced are designated Kepler-47b, and Kepler-47c, and the third, later discovery is Kepler-47d. Kepler-47 is the first circumbinary multi-planet system discovered by the Kepler mission. The outermost of the planets is a gas giant orbiting within the habitable zone of the stars. Because most stars are binary, the discovery that multi-planet systems can form in such a system has impacted previous theories of planetary formation.
The Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) initiative is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) virtual institute designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the search for life on exoplanets. Led by the Ames Research Center, the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NExSS will help organize the search for life on exoplanets from participating research teams and acquire new knowledge about exoplanets and extrasolar planetary systems.
The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL) is a space telescope and the fourth medium-class mission of the European Space Agency's Cosmic Vision programme. The mission is aimed at observing at least 1000 known exoplanets using the transit method, studying and characterising the planets' chemical composition and thermal structures. Compared to the James Webb Space Telescope, ARIEL will be a much smaller telescope and have more observing time available for planet characterisation. ARIEL is expected to be launched in 2029 aboard an Arianespace Ariane 6 together with the Comet Interceptor.
