Proceedings

EPJ H Highlight - Once upon a time, an exoplanet was discovered

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Mayor and Queloz in front of the dome of the EULER 1.2 m-telescope at La Silla Observatory.

Personal recollections of an astrophysicist shed new light on the 1995 discovery on 51 Pegasi b

In recent history, a very important achievement was the discovery, in 1995, of 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet ever found around a normal star other than the Sun. In a paper published in EPJ H, Davide Cenadelli from the Aosta Valley Astronomical Observatory (Italy) interviews Michel Mayor from Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) about his personal recollections of discovering this exoplanet. They discuss how the development of better telescopes made the discovery possible. They also delve into how this discovery contributed to shaping a new community of scholars pursuing this new field of research. In closing, they reflect upon the cultural importance that the 51 Pegasi b discovery had in terms of changing our view of the cosmos.

Michel Mayor was born in Lausanne in 1942. He turned to astronomy when he did his PhD at the Geneva Observatory, where he focused on elucidating the theoretical nature of the spiral arms of galaxies, which make it possible for stars and nebulae to pass through without permanently remaining inside the arms. Later on his interest shifted to solar-type stars, and in 1991 he published the result of 15 years of work on the statistics of such solar-type stars. In hindsight, this paper played a significant role in boosting, at a later time, his interest in brown dwarfs and planets. He feels that the search for exoplanets was a direct continuation of that work.

He then relates what drove the development of a spectrograph called ELODIE, designed to offer very high sensitivity in measuring the radial velocities of stars. ELODIE commenced operation in April 1994, and Mayor and his colleague Queloz discovered 51 Peg b in July 1995. As the first planet ever discovered around a normal star other than the Sun, it was a ground-breaking achievement. A few years later, Mayor contributed to designing and building another state-of-the-art spectrograph, called HARPS, that is now allowing astronomers to probe the universe further. Altogether about 300 new exoplanets have been discovered by Mayor and his co-workers since 51 Peg b.

“Exoplanets: the beginning of a new era in astrophysics” by Michel Mayor and Davide Cenadelli (2018), European Physical Journal H, DOI 10.1140/epjh/e2018-80063-1

This was our first experience of publishing with EPJ Web of Conferences. We contacted the publisher in the middle of September, just one month prior to the Conference, but everything went through smoothly. We have had published MNPS Proceedings with different publishers in the past, and would like to tell that the EPJ Web of Conferences team was probably the best, very quick, helpful and interactive. Typically, we were getting responses from EPJ Web of Conferences team within less than an hour and have had help at every production stage.
We are very thankful to Solange Guenot, Web of Conferences Publishing Editor, and Isabelle Houlbert, Web of Conferences Production Editor, for their support. These ladies are top-level professionals, who made a great contribution to the success of this issue. We are fully satisfied with the publication of the Conference Proceedings and are looking forward to further cooperation. The publication was very fast, easy and of high quality. My colleagues and I strongly recommend EPJ Web of Conferences to anyone, who is interested in quick high-quality publication of conference proceedings.

On behalf of the Organizing and Program Committees and Editorial Team of MNPS-2019, Dr. Alexey B. Nadykto, Moscow State Technological University “STANKIN”, Moscow, Russia. EPJ Web of Conferences vol. 224 (2019)

ISSN: 2100-014X (Electronic Edition)

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