TALK ABSTRACT:
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The search for planets outside our Solar System has a long and
dismal history.  However, all that changed in 1995, when we entered
the era of the discovery of extrasolar planetary systems.  To date,
well over 100 planets have been found outside our Solar System,
ranging from the fairly familiar to the weirdly unexpected.  Nearly all
of the new planets discovered to date appear to be gas giant planets,
similar to our Jupiter and Saturn.  Recently, a few planets with much
lower minimum masses have been found, but it is not clear if they are
ice giant planets similar to Uranus and Neptune, or rock giant planets,
i.e., super-Earths.  The long-term goal is to discover and characterize
nearby Earth-like, habitable planets.  NASA has planned an array of
ground- and space-based telescopes that will carry out this incredible
search in the next two decades, starting with the Kepler Mission.
Kepler will be able to detect Earth-like planets by the transit
method, and is expected to find dozens of habitable worlds by 2010.