Rebecca Oppenheimer

Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer is a Professor in the Department of Astrophysics and a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. As a comparative exoplanetary scientist she studies objects orbiting stars other than the Sun by trying to see them directly and to dissect their chemical compositions. Dr. Oppenheimer is the co-discoverer of Gliese 229B, the first object smaller than a star ever seen outside the solar system, and her research includes the first direct investigations of the atmospheric composition, chemistry and physics of an extrasolar sub-stellar object.

Her optics laboratory in the Rose Center for Earth and Space is the birthplace of a number of new astronomical instruments designed to tackle the problem of directly seeing and taking spectra of nearby solar systems. In March 2004, Dr. Oppenheimer deployed the world’s most sensitive coronagraph at the AEOS Telescope in Maui. In June 2008, her team deployed an even more precise and sensitive exoplanet imaging system at the Palomar Observatory. She also built the starlight suppression system for the International Gemini Observatory Planet Imager project (GPI). Her latest project is called PARVI, the Palomar Advanced Radial Velocity Instrument. PARVI is a diffraction-limited, near-IR spectrometer which will be capable of measuring radial velocities with a precision of 0.3 m/s. With this capability we will be able to detect planets smaller than Earth orbiting cool stars, as well as new investigations at unprecedented spectral resolution. She is curating a new, permanent installation about modern astronomical instruments in the AMNH Gilder Center, the new building currently under construction at Columbus Avenue and 79th Street.