Career Group Listening Report NO.2

Reference:
Brar, R. (2010, April 17). Exoplanets: The search for other planets. Best lecture 2010 @ TVO Podcast. Podcast Retrieved from:
http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?78619145001

Summary:
In TVO’s lecture video “Exoplanets: The search for other planets”, Rupinder Brar explained the recent research about exoplanets. In his lecture, he showed how people used direct detection or indirect detection methods to detected planets in the galaxy. First of all, he gave us a general idea about planetary system. Then, he used an emergency light and a small ball to help him explained the theory of planetary. From these experiments, we can see that if a planet was very close to the shining star, the planet would be very hard to detect because the light from the shining star would cover the planet. It means that the parents planet have very strong influence on the small planets which around them. Secondly, he presented the first extrasolar planet which was called Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut’s track was confirmed via direct imaging in 2008. At the end, he said that our technique can be improved to a higher level, and people can detect and learn more planets in the galaxy.

Critique:
I choose this lecture because I want to get knowledge from different areas and learn some general ideas from different majors. This lecture was a little bit hard for me because there were a lot of new vocabularies about astronomy. However, after Brar using some pictures and tools to explain it, I got the ideas. I like Brar’s lecture, not only the tools and the examples that he used can made me easy to understand his lecture, but also the way he presented was very easy to understand. I like his teaching style because he is friendly, and students would feel that the teacher is their friend. Also, he helped students to get the information easier. Students paid attention for him because he always walking around the classroom and communicate with students. I learned a lot of knowledge about the exoplanets from this lecure. It was really interesting. I think it was important for people to know the planets which around our earth. On the other hand, sometimes governments waste a lot of money to explore the galaxy. It is true that our environmental contamination become more and more serious. However, we should protect and save energies to instead finding a new planet to live.