About the Lab
The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is a research laboratory at Princeton University led by Professor Jeremy Kasdin and comprising of an interdisciplinary group of faculty, staff, and graduate students from Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Astrophysics, the Institute for Advanced Study, Operational Research & Financial Engineering, and other departments.
Our goal is to contribute to the state of the art technology of exoplanetary detection and imaging of earthlike planets in the habitable zone of nearby solar systems, for both ground-based and space-based astronomical instrumentation. While over 200 planets have been detected to date, few have been directly imaged and all of these are Jupiter-sized. Direct imaging is necessary for characterization of the planets and for the search of biomarkers. The Princeton group is working on optical design, laboratory verification, wavefront control, systems engineering, trajectory analysis and scientific characterization, among other areas.
News
- THEIA mission concept study whitepaper completed
- Mike McElwain receives NSF Post-doctoral Research Fellowship
- Elizabeth Jensen receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- First Symmetric Dark Hole in 2D paper published
> back to top
Collaborators
- Ball Aerospace and Technology
- Lockheed Martin
- NASA
- Subaru Telescope
> back to top
| home | projects | publications | people | links |
