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Thirty years after the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star, we have confirmed over 6,000 exoplanets. However, the existence of a Solar System analog – let alone an exo-Earth – remains elusive. This gap in our knowledge reflects not the uniqueness of our home, but the technical challenge of directly detecting habitable worlds around Sun-like stars. High-contrast imaging, enabled by advanced coronagraphs on future ~6-meter space telescopes, offers the most direct and promising path to exo-Earths within the next decade. This talk will trace the evolution of coronagraphic imaging from it validating General Relativity to its current role in studying faint objects around bright central sources (stars, quasars, etc.). I will highlight key results that have shaped our understanding of planet formation, and outline the exciting trajectory for this technology in the exploration of exoplanetary and extragalactic systems over the next five years.

BIO

Bin Ren is a Professor of Astronomy at Xiamen University. He received his PhD from The Johns Hopkins University in 2019, followed by postdoctoral research at Caltech. He was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in Europe before returning to his undergraduate alma mater. He works on high-contrast imaging x applied math.

Host: Wei Zhu