[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/boss_alan.jpg” caption=”Alan Boss”]While the search for planets outside our Solar System has had a long and dismal history, theoretical astrophysicist Alan Boss is on a mission to change that — and fast. Boss is on a race to find new solar systems and will explain how at the fourth Origins Lecture tonight.

Boss, a research staff member at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, DC., will present “The Race to Find New Solar Systems”, Thursday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. in Chester New Hall, Rm. 104.

As one of the world's leading authorities and lecturers on planet formation, Boss will discuss the search for planets outside our Solar System. To date, he says, more than 100 planets have been found outside our Solar System, ranging from the fairly familiar to the weirdly unexpected. All of the new planets discovered appear to be gas giant planets, similar to our Jupiter and Saturn. The next challenge is to find ice giant planets, similar to Uranus and Neptune, and eventually to find evidence of Earth-like planets, capable of supporting life. NASA has designed an array of ground and space-based telescopes that will carry out this incredible search in the next two decades.

Boss is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Meteoritical Society, and the American Geophysical Union. He is chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Extrasolar Planets, charged with maintaining the IAU's official list of planets. His research focuses on using three dimensional hydrodynamics codes to model the formation of stars and planetary systems. He has been helping NASA plan its search for extrasolar planets ever since 1988, continues to be active in helping to guide NASA's efforts, and has written a popular book about the search.

Origins is a proposed institute to be based in the Faculty of Science. The scientific focus of Origins is to create and foster multidisciplinary research on origins themes across a spectrum of interrelated research fields. Tonight's lecture is the fourth in a series of five presentations on origins research.