Space Cafe Tokyo, July 2025

"The frontiers of planet formation and beyond"

Planets orbiting around other stars are called extrasolar planets or exoplanets in short. Ever since the first discovery of an exoplanet, the number of confirmed exoplanets exceeds 5,000 today. The surge of exoplanet detections not only revolutionizes our understanding of planet formation, but also reveals a number of unknowns. Yasuhiro Hasegawa (JPL/Caltech) will discuss some of these advances in planet formation and intriguing questions. We will also touch on development of new ground and space telescopes to address these questions.

Speaker info:
Apollo 13, the movie based on the true story, sparked a boy’s curiosity. His interest has changed from space engineering to physics as he grew and dreamed about uncovering the origin of the Universe. After countless setbacks and unexpected, good and bad lucks, Yasuhiro Hasegawa is currently working as the Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, which is one of NASA research centers. He did BSc at Tokyo University of Science and MSc/PhD at McMaster University, Canada. He was the first EACOA fellow at ASIAA, Taiwan and NAOJ, Japan. He is the science team member of the Habitable World Observatory (HWO) that is the next NASA flagship mission to be launched in 2040s.

Speaker's webpage: https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/hasegawa/

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We will be at Good Heavens British Bar in Shimokitazawa for a space-themed talk + drinks.
Doors open at 7:30pm | Speaker starts at 8pm
Tickets can be purchased at the door for ¥1500 and cover your first drink.