at the tender age of two I fell in love
with the universe I was just like any
other baby you’d meet because I would
cry all day long even because of the
most insignificant of things if I was
even a little bit hungry I would start
crying if I need to my diaper changed I
would start crying if the llama at the
zoo ate the candy that I had in my hand
I would start crying but my mother had
one trick one very special trick
whenever I started to become fussy she
would take me over to my bedroom window
and point to the heavens see those
twinkling stars over there see that big
round moon shining down on us
and I would stop crying you see even
before I had the ability to form
complete sentences
I had already developed a deep
appreciation for what lay beyond her
home planet I was already starting to
dream big throughout my childhood I was
never really focused on this simple and
material thing so to speak my mission
was simple I wanted to see what was
really out there billions of miles away
from us in the final frontier
now that was a big dream unfortunately
there were many opportunities available
for me at the time discovering planets
outside of our solar system is expensive
and requires a tremendous amount of
effort I never lost hope though many
nights I would just look out of my
bedroom window at the Stars and dream
about how maybe just baby there were
hidden treasures out there possibly
teeming with life just waiting to be
found things change for me as I grew
older that was when I watched the movie
interstellar for the first time and
surprisingly I wasn’t really intrigued
by the fact that Joseph Cooper managed
to end up in a black hole without dying
or that endurance is possibly the kola
spaceship out there rather I became
fascinated by the depictions of
potentially habitable exoplanets the
observable universe has approximately 1
billion trillion stars which if you
think about it it is a really big number
that’s about 5 to 10 times more than the
number of grains of sand on all of
Earth’s peaches combined which is also a
really big number with so many stars out
there I thought what will it take before
we finally find a planet that is not
only habitable but also within a close
enough distance such that we may travel
to you one day and in my freshman year
of high school I was able to fulfill
this dream but before I tell you the
story of how I discovered exoplanets
we’re gonna play a game first I’m gonna
say a word and you’re gonna think of the
first thing that comes to mind when you
hear that word all right it could be an
impression and image anything really
the word is Marvel’s M AR ve LS so for
many of you when you hear the word
Marvel’s your first thought might be
spider-man however in my world
Marvel’s is actually an acronym not a
superhero
that stands for multi object apo radial
velocity exoplanet large area survey now
that’s certainly a mouthful that’s why
we go with Marvel’s Marvel’s is
certainly not an opportunity to tell
spider-man game more amazing superpowers
but I’m sure that would have been an
amazing research project however it was
actually a radial velocity survey that
looked in more than 5,500 stars over a
period of four years to see if objects
orbiting them we call them stellar
companions could be found now Marvel’s
tried to discover three main types of
storage companions giant planets brown
dwarfs and binary stars however we
didn’t just point the telescope at the
sky and hoped that we would see a planet
rather we looked at the stars themselves
using a technique called the radial
velocity method I don’t know about you
but when I was growing up in elementary
school my class would always split up
into various groups and play tug-of-war
all the time now imagine that you and
one of your best buddies just the two of
you are playing game of tug-of-war
both of you are going to be tugging at
each other through the rope yet no one
really seems to be gaining an advantage
because you’re both tugging with equal
now imagine that the two of you are
standing on a merry-go-round
both of you are still tugging at each
other through the rope except now the
merry-go-round is spinning both of you
now let’s assume that there’s a teacher
standing a couple of feet away off to
the side she can see that both of you
are spinning on the merry-go-round
tugging at each other through the rope
now here’s the interesting part she can
see that the bigger one of you to
whomever that may be is not standing
stationary rather because both of you
are standing on the merry-go-round
spinning around each other
akin to binary stars orbit each other
she can see that the bigger person is in
a periodic cycle of getting closer and
moving away right that’s how the radial
velocity method works if a star has an
object orbiting around it then both
objects are pulling a gravitational game
of tug-of-war meaning that neither
object stays completely stationary from
our point of view from our vantage point
we can see the wobble inflicted by the
smaller companion in this case a planet
onto the larger star and that’s how we
know if something is there through
measuring the wobble of stars clubs or
by marvels we detected nine shine
planets one brown dwarf and three new
binary stars but wait the fun doesn’t
stop there
so now let’s assume that a third person
wants to play tug of war well we’re
gonna have to take a separate rope and
attach him to the original game of tug
of war this third person is going to
inflict his own gravitational force onto
the two other people originally in the
system how would a more complicated
situation like that one that allows us
to predict the individual motions of
stellar companions interacting with each
other gravitationally be visualized well
suppose that we know that wearable
parameters of at least two of the
objects in the system then the radial
velocity signatures of the third object
can be isolated as they should be fairly
obvious see this third object it’s going
to cause its own wobble on to the two
parent stars and this effect although in
many cases very minimal can be detected
I was sifting through radial velocity
data for Marvel stars one who noticed
something very odd from the data
filtered out from this binary star there
were some extremely unusual signatures
let’s see if you can find them for many
of you this might just look like points
on a graph but look here Wow as you can
see in this very bottom plot you can see
a trend that looks like a sine wave and
what this trend is telling us is that
it’s showing us the pattern of the
wobble of the parent star which is the
more massive star it’s showing us that
the parent star is going in a periodic
cycle of moving towards us going away
from us and so on it repeats that cycle
based on other observations collected
from the system we have concluded that
this object that’s causing the wobble of
the parent star whatever it may be is
most likely a giant planet and here you
see the giant planet revolving around
the two binary stars this is a circum
binary system and as you can see the two
binary stars are revolving around the
center of mass of the entire system we
call this center the barycenter the
circum binary planet orbits around this
point as well though as you can see its
orbit is spaced how much further
compared to the orbit of the two parent
stars data indicates that
binary system orbits had a period of 42
days while the planet signatures
indicate a period of just under 400 days
and a mass of three times a mass of
Jupiter in other words this is a true
p-type circum binary system in which the
planet orbits strictly outside of the
orbit of the two parent stars doesn’t it
remind you of the planet Tatooine Luke
Skywalker’s home from Star Wars it
orbits are in a binary star system too
though as you can see if you walk out
onto the surface of Tatooine you’re
gonna see two suns in the sky although
many studies have explored using a
radial velocity to detect such
circumpolar planets this is the first
solid detection of such a world initial
results from the Marvel survey are very
promising the discovery of the circum
binary planet has effectively proved
that modern radial velocity instruments
have the capabilities to tease out a
planet’s orbital parameters and
configuration even within the chaotic
environment of a binary star system so
what’s the next step well first let’s
backtrack to the tug of war scenario
imagine that the person on the opposite
end of the rope is someone much weaker
than you he or she will thus inflict a
force that is very small in magnitude
the same is true for terrestrial planets
because these are much less massive than
giant planets it is quite difficult to
detect them due to the smaller
gravitational force that they inflict on
the parent stars the smaller
gravitational force means that it’s
gonna be quite difficult to find a
planet it’s because the wobble is gonna
be sewn to smaller let’s take our solar
system for an as an example the earth
inflicts only about 0.1 m/s of radial
velocity change onto the Sun fortunately
as instruments become more and more
powerful and techniques become more and
more precise hopefully we’ll be able to
detect more of these minuscule
perturbations within two stars orbit the
goal of humanity has long been to
maintain the existence of life
throughout the future despite this
however the quality of the environment
we lived in has degraded over the past
several decades cities are becoming
shrouded and in dust
smog water levels are rising
uncontrollably and extreme weather
plagues remote areas for many the only
approach by which humans can ensure the
preservation of life is to become an
interplanetary species and we are
already one step closer towards
achieving that goal through many recent
planetary surveys it has been found at
an increasing number of exoplanets lie
within the habitable or a Goldilocks
zone of their parent stars why do we
call it the Goldilocks zone well the
temperature range experienced by planets
in this zone it’s just right for the
existence of liquid water on their
surfaces and liquid water is a crucial
catalyst to the thriving of life as you
can see here this Green Zone is exactly
the Goldilocks zone on the dartboard of
the universe this is the bullseye that
we are aiming for given the immense size
of our universe it is probably only a
matter of time before humans find an
exoplanet that is not only habitable but
also we’re orbiting very close to our
solar system such that we may travel to
you in one day so what are the
implications of the discovery of the
circumbinary planet well first and
foremost it points to the conclusion
that many rare stellar systems exist
within our universe yet have been left
undetected by humans fortunately current
public exoplanet hunting efforts which
essentially allows anyone with access to
computer to analyze data coming in from
observatories to see if extrasolar
planets could be detected are gaining in
popularity as this collective effort
expands maybe someone is sitting in
theater today will reveal humanity’s
second home to us you know when I first
started training about discovering
extrasolar planets many thought I was
joking
in fact many adults that I trusted
thought I was going through a phase that
I would eventually outgrow but despite
what other people might say and think
about you it’s always okay to have wild
dreams because even though it might seem
like they’re far out of reach today they
might become reality tomorrow you will
be able to solve the problems the world
faces every day if
you have the ability to imagine dream
and actively propose new ideas to
society furthermore there’s nothing
wrong with taking risks because even
though it might seem like there’s a 99%
chance of failure the key to solving
ancient mysteries might just like that
1% as long as we all have a willingness
to work hard for what we believe in
there is nothing that humankind cannot
accomplish and having dreams is the key
to making that happen my dream started
when I was 2 years old
I want everybody into this audience
right now just take a moment just taking
your thoughts formulate dreams of your
own and leave this theater today knowing
that you have the potential to change
the world regardless of race religion
gender or age the future relies on our
collective power I told you in the
beginning that when I was 2 years old
I fell in love with the universe now
that I’m at the ripe old age of 16 my
love for the universe has only deepened
what I wish for each and every one of
you is to Kindle your love for what this
amazing universe has to offer thank you [Applause]
with the universe I was just like any
other baby you’d meet because I would
cry all day long even because of the
most insignificant of things if I was
even a little bit hungry I would start
crying if I need to my diaper changed I
would start crying if the llama at the
zoo ate the candy that I had in my hand
I would start crying but my mother had
one trick one very special trick
whenever I started to become fussy she
would take me over to my bedroom window
and point to the heavens see those
twinkling stars over there see that big
round moon shining down on us
and I would stop crying you see even
before I had the ability to form
complete sentences
I had already developed a deep
appreciation for what lay beyond her
home planet I was already starting to
dream big throughout my childhood I was
never really focused on this simple and
material thing so to speak my mission
was simple I wanted to see what was
really out there billions of miles away
from us in the final frontier
now that was a big dream unfortunately
there were many opportunities available
for me at the time discovering planets
outside of our solar system is expensive
and requires a tremendous amount of
effort I never lost hope though many
nights I would just look out of my
bedroom window at the Stars and dream
about how maybe just baby there were
hidden treasures out there possibly
teeming with life just waiting to be
found things change for me as I grew
older that was when I watched the movie
interstellar for the first time and
surprisingly I wasn’t really intrigued
by the fact that Joseph Cooper managed
to end up in a black hole without dying
or that endurance is possibly the kola
spaceship out there rather I became
fascinated by the depictions of
potentially habitable exoplanets the
observable universe has approximately 1
billion trillion stars which if you
think about it it is a really big number
that’s about 5 to 10 times more than the
number of grains of sand on all of
Earth’s peaches combined which is also a
really big number with so many stars out
there I thought what will it take before
we finally find a planet that is not
only habitable but also within a close
enough distance such that we may travel
to you one day and in my freshman year
of high school I was able to fulfill
this dream but before I tell you the
story of how I discovered exoplanets
we’re gonna play a game first I’m gonna
say a word and you’re gonna think of the
first thing that comes to mind when you
hear that word all right it could be an
impression and image anything really
the word is Marvel’s M AR ve LS so for
many of you when you hear the word
Marvel’s your first thought might be
spider-man however in my world
Marvel’s is actually an acronym not a
superhero
that stands for multi object apo radial
velocity exoplanet large area survey now
that’s certainly a mouthful that’s why
we go with Marvel’s Marvel’s is
certainly not an opportunity to tell
spider-man game more amazing superpowers
but I’m sure that would have been an
amazing research project however it was
actually a radial velocity survey that
looked in more than 5,500 stars over a
period of four years to see if objects
orbiting them we call them stellar
companions could be found now Marvel’s
tried to discover three main types of
storage companions giant planets brown
dwarfs and binary stars however we
didn’t just point the telescope at the
sky and hoped that we would see a planet
rather we looked at the stars themselves
using a technique called the radial
velocity method I don’t know about you
but when I was growing up in elementary
school my class would always split up
into various groups and play tug-of-war
all the time now imagine that you and
one of your best buddies just the two of
you are playing game of tug-of-war
both of you are going to be tugging at
each other through the rope yet no one
really seems to be gaining an advantage
because you’re both tugging with equal
now imagine that the two of you are
standing on a merry-go-round
both of you are still tugging at each
other through the rope except now the
merry-go-round is spinning both of you
now let’s assume that there’s a teacher
standing a couple of feet away off to
the side she can see that both of you
are spinning on the merry-go-round
tugging at each other through the rope
now here’s the interesting part she can
see that the bigger one of you to
whomever that may be is not standing
stationary rather because both of you
are standing on the merry-go-round
spinning around each other
akin to binary stars orbit each other
she can see that the bigger person is in
a periodic cycle of getting closer and
moving away right that’s how the radial
velocity method works if a star has an
object orbiting around it then both
objects are pulling a gravitational game
of tug-of-war meaning that neither
object stays completely stationary from
our point of view from our vantage point
we can see the wobble inflicted by the
smaller companion in this case a planet
onto the larger star and that’s how we
know if something is there through
measuring the wobble of stars clubs or
by marvels we detected nine shine
planets one brown dwarf and three new
binary stars but wait the fun doesn’t
stop there
so now let’s assume that a third person
wants to play tug of war well we’re
gonna have to take a separate rope and
attach him to the original game of tug
of war this third person is going to
inflict his own gravitational force onto
the two other people originally in the
system how would a more complicated
situation like that one that allows us
to predict the individual motions of
stellar companions interacting with each
other gravitationally be visualized well
suppose that we know that wearable
parameters of at least two of the
objects in the system then the radial
velocity signatures of the third object
can be isolated as they should be fairly
obvious see this third object it’s going
to cause its own wobble on to the two
parent stars and this effect although in
many cases very minimal can be detected
I was sifting through radial velocity
data for Marvel stars one who noticed
something very odd from the data
filtered out from this binary star there
were some extremely unusual signatures
let’s see if you can find them for many
of you this might just look like points
on a graph but look here Wow as you can
see in this very bottom plot you can see
a trend that looks like a sine wave and
what this trend is telling us is that
it’s showing us the pattern of the
wobble of the parent star which is the
more massive star it’s showing us that
the parent star is going in a periodic
cycle of moving towards us going away
from us and so on it repeats that cycle
based on other observations collected
from the system we have concluded that
this object that’s causing the wobble of
the parent star whatever it may be is
most likely a giant planet and here you
see the giant planet revolving around
the two binary stars this is a circum
binary system and as you can see the two
binary stars are revolving around the
center of mass of the entire system we
call this center the barycenter the
circum binary planet orbits around this
point as well though as you can see its
orbit is spaced how much further
compared to the orbit of the two parent
stars data indicates that
binary system orbits had a period of 42
days while the planet signatures
indicate a period of just under 400 days
and a mass of three times a mass of
Jupiter in other words this is a true
p-type circum binary system in which the
planet orbits strictly outside of the
orbit of the two parent stars doesn’t it
remind you of the planet Tatooine Luke
Skywalker’s home from Star Wars it
orbits are in a binary star system too
though as you can see if you walk out
onto the surface of Tatooine you’re
gonna see two suns in the sky although
many studies have explored using a
radial velocity to detect such
circumpolar planets this is the first
solid detection of such a world initial
results from the Marvel survey are very
promising the discovery of the circum
binary planet has effectively proved
that modern radial velocity instruments
have the capabilities to tease out a
planet’s orbital parameters and
configuration even within the chaotic
environment of a binary star system so
what’s the next step well first let’s
backtrack to the tug of war scenario
imagine that the person on the opposite
end of the rope is someone much weaker
than you he or she will thus inflict a
force that is very small in magnitude
the same is true for terrestrial planets
because these are much less massive than
giant planets it is quite difficult to
detect them due to the smaller
gravitational force that they inflict on
the parent stars the smaller
gravitational force means that it’s
gonna be quite difficult to find a
planet it’s because the wobble is gonna
be sewn to smaller let’s take our solar
system for an as an example the earth
inflicts only about 0.1 m/s of radial
velocity change onto the Sun fortunately
as instruments become more and more
powerful and techniques become more and
more precise hopefully we’ll be able to
detect more of these minuscule
perturbations within two stars orbit the
goal of humanity has long been to
maintain the existence of life
throughout the future despite this
however the quality of the environment
we lived in has degraded over the past
several decades cities are becoming
shrouded and in dust
smog water levels are rising
uncontrollably and extreme weather
plagues remote areas for many the only
approach by which humans can ensure the
preservation of life is to become an
interplanetary species and we are
already one step closer towards
achieving that goal through many recent
planetary surveys it has been found at
an increasing number of exoplanets lie
within the habitable or a Goldilocks
zone of their parent stars why do we
call it the Goldilocks zone well the
temperature range experienced by planets
in this zone it’s just right for the
existence of liquid water on their
surfaces and liquid water is a crucial
catalyst to the thriving of life as you
can see here this Green Zone is exactly
the Goldilocks zone on the dartboard of
the universe this is the bullseye that
we are aiming for given the immense size
of our universe it is probably only a
matter of time before humans find an
exoplanet that is not only habitable but
also we’re orbiting very close to our
solar system such that we may travel to
you in one day so what are the
implications of the discovery of the
circumbinary planet well first and
foremost it points to the conclusion
that many rare stellar systems exist
within our universe yet have been left
undetected by humans fortunately current
public exoplanet hunting efforts which
essentially allows anyone with access to
computer to analyze data coming in from
observatories to see if extrasolar
planets could be detected are gaining in
popularity as this collective effort
expands maybe someone is sitting in
theater today will reveal humanity’s
second home to us you know when I first
started training about discovering
extrasolar planets many thought I was
joking
in fact many adults that I trusted
thought I was going through a phase that
I would eventually outgrow but despite
what other people might say and think
about you it’s always okay to have wild
dreams because even though it might seem
like they’re far out of reach today they
might become reality tomorrow you will
be able to solve the problems the world
faces every day if
you have the ability to imagine dream
and actively propose new ideas to
society furthermore there’s nothing
wrong with taking risks because even
though it might seem like there’s a 99%
chance of failure the key to solving
ancient mysteries might just like that
1% as long as we all have a willingness
to work hard for what we believe in
there is nothing that humankind cannot
accomplish and having dreams is the key
to making that happen my dream started
when I was 2 years old
I want everybody into this audience
right now just take a moment just taking
your thoughts formulate dreams of your
own and leave this theater today knowing
that you have the potential to change
the world regardless of race religion
gender or age the future relies on our
collective power I told you in the
beginning that when I was 2 years old
I fell in love with the universe now
that I’m at the ripe old age of 16 my
love for the universe has only deepened
what I wish for each and every one of
you is to Kindle your love for what this
amazing universe has to offer thank you [Applause]
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