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The Space Universities Network (SUN) aims to enhance the quality of learning and teaching by providing support and resources to the higher education space science and engineering community. We wish to help create a skilled workforce of graduates who can meet the challenges of future space exploration and exploitation. This is one of a series of Space industry webinars aimed at University staff and students.

This Webinar is comprised of a 30-minute talk by Chris Peasron, an interview with her, and a live Q&A from the audience.

Chris Pearson is an astrophysicist and head of the astronomy group at RAL Space, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Chris has a PhD doctorate in cosmology from Imperial London with a research interest in the evolution of galaxies in the Universe.

He has worked on astronomical galaxy surveys with many major space missions, including 7 years in Japan working on the AKARI mission for the Japanese and European Space Agencies and 3 years in the UK working for the Canadian Space Agency, finally joining RAL Space working on the Herschel Space Observatory. Chris is currently working on the ARIEL mission, due for launch in 2028, searching for exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) and the Square Kilometre Array, the largest radio telescope ever built (half in Australia and South Africa, with the HQ in the UK).

Chris is a qualified STEM ambassador and regularly goes into schools for space outreach activities with children of all ages. He also has worked at major events such as New Scientist Live, The Big Bang Fair, The Royal Society Summer Exhibition and the Lord Mawson / Brian Cox Science Summer School. Away from his science research, he is a 5th Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo and is kept busy teaching his local club of 150 students.

Less than 30 years ago the only planets known to exist were those found within our own Solar System. From the first confirmed discovery in 1992 - of a pair of exotic planets orbiting around a dead star - the field of exoplanetary science has undergone nothing short of a revolution. Currently, we stand at a staggering 4000+ confirmed discoveries of planets outside our Solar System. What we have found is that, as usual, our Universe is more diverse that we could possibly imagine, throwing up a menagerie of weird and wonderful planets such as Jupiter sized worlds orbiting ridiculously close to their parent stars, worlds made of ice, lave and even diamond, to rogue planets drifting alone in the vastness of space. With such a treasure trove of discovery, the next logical step is to characterise the properties of these systems. We are at the dawn of a new age in exoplanet research where for the first time large samples of 1000+ exoplanets are not only being detected but also characterised by analysing the composition of their atmospheres. The European Space Agency's ARIEL mission, due for launch in 2028, will become the leading facility in this characterisation process.