Summer course on Exoplanets
La Palma, Canary Islands, 24 September - 2 October 2014

Structure of the course

The course "Exoplanets" will take place from 24 September to 2 October 2014 at the Island of La Palma, which belongs to the Spanish archipelago Canary Islands. Arrival of participants will be on 23 September and departure on 3 October. It aims to give students a thorough introduction in the formation of planetary systems, exoplanet detection and habitability. The course consists of lectures, pratical exercises and discussions. Participants will also have the possibility to display their own research results in two poster sessions. The following subjects will be covered by the lectures:

• Formation of planetary systems
• Formation of gaseous and rocky planets
• Detection and investigation of exoplanets
• (Exo)planetary atmospheres
• Exomoons

Practical exercises

The lecture programme will be complemented by practical exercises concerning:

• Obervations of exoplanet transits using the Nordic Optical Telescope
• Modelling of exoplanet atmospheres

A (hopefully final!) programme of the summer course can be downloaded as an .xls file here.

Poster sessions

The poster sessions will be held on Wednesday, 24 and Thursday 25 September 2014. They are aiming to allow participants to present their work, so even posters a bit remote from the course subjects are welcome. The poster board dimensions are 2.44 metres in height and 1.21 metres in width. Thus, landscape DIN A0 should work, but portrait orientatiom is preferable looks better).

Participants will be allowed a 4 minutes presentation for their posters (no discussion). The presentation will take place in the lecture room at the conference venue. Powerpoint slides can be used. For a smooth run of these poster talks, presenters are asked to bring their talks on a memory stick or CD-ROM.

Excursions

Apart from the Nordic Optical Telescope participants will have the possibility to visit the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Excursions to geologically interesting sites like the Caldera det Taburiente (not a Caldera actually) and the Teneguia eruption site from 1971 accompanied by a volcanologist will be carried out.

Bienvenidos a La Palma !