First Announcement - November 16 2010

The NASA ExoPlanet Exploration Program and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute are co-hosting the 6th in a series of international scientific conferences on the topic of present and future observations of exoplanets from space.

The conference will present state-of-the art results from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, the Kepler and CoRot transit missions, as well as relevant ground-based facilities. Noted theoreticians will provide perspective and interpretation of the observational results of the physical characterization of planets ranging in size from gas and icy giants, super Earths, and (ultimately) Earth analogs.

Speakers will emphasize how exoplanet observations help us understand the formation and evolution of objects in our own Solar System.

Speakers will also look toward the future with a focus on the exoplanet observations using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and ESA's GAIA astrometric mission. Speakers from the four JWST instrument teams will address the capabilities of JWST for coronagraphy and transit follow-up. The conference will end with discussions of the exoplanet exploration potential of missions and technologies endorsed by the Astro2010 Decadal Review and the steps being taken by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program to implement those recommendations. Similar discussions will be held on plans of other space agencies.

The conference will include invited talks, contributed talks and posters as well as a public lecture. The conference is sponsored by NASA, the Spitzer Science Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology, the Blue Dots initiative, Northrup Grumman Space Systems, Lockheed Martin, and the James Webb Space Telescope project.