Written by Linda Vu
Spitzer Science Center

Dr. David Charbonneau was named Discover Magazine's "Scientist of the Year" for his work in detecting and characterizing planets around nearby Sun-like stars. His profile appears in the December issue, which hits newsstands on November 13, 2007.

Charbonneau's ground-breaking research has included several unique results from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In 2005, he was one of the first scientists to detect light coming directly from a planet outside of our solar system. Earlier this year, Charbonneau was a member of two teams studying another world, resulting in one of the first infrared spectra, and temperature maps, of an exoplanet.

He is currently a staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

For more information about these Spitzer exoplanet results see:

• NASA's Spitzer Marks Beginning of New Age of Planetary Science
• NASA Finds Extremely Hot Planet, Makes First Exoplanet Weather Map
• NASA's Spitzer First To Crack Open Light of Faraway Worlds

Harvard-Smithsonian Press Release: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2007/pr200730.html