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What’s your name? Where are you from?

My name is Jingyi Mah. I am from Malaysia.

What institution do you work for?

I work for the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

What was your professional career? What did you study in college/university?

I majored in Physics during undergraduate and then moved on to Astrophysics and Planetary Science during graduate school.

How did you arrive at exoplanet research?

When I was searching for a suitable research topic for my masters thesis, I came across a paper about an M dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1 that hosts 7 Earth-sized planets. Finding this exoplanet system extremely intriguing, I decided to study its long-term stability and possible formation pathway.

What scientific questions do you seek to answer?

How does the water content in protoplanetary discs affect the outcome of planet formation?
What role does the chemical abundance of the host star play in determining the bulk composition of planets?

View other posts

Spectroscopy

by | May 8, 2024 | All,Detection methods,Exoplanet Overview | 0 Comments

The Spectrum of light and what it tells us One fundamental and essential tool in the study of exoplanets is the study of light spectra. It is useful to have an...

Exoplanet systems

by | Feb 12, 2024 | All,Exoplanet Overview,Multiple planet systems | 0 Comments

Credit: nasa.govDefinition: The planets of our Solar System are ordered a certain way: closest to the sun are the smaller, terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and...

Astrometry

by | Mar 10, 2023 | All,Astrometry,Detection methods | 0 Comments

How it works: Like the radial velocity method, this technique makes use of the fact that star and planet both orbit a shared center of mass. For systems that we look at...

Direct Imaging

by | Mar 10, 2023 | All,Detection methods,Direct Imaging | 0 Comments

Without a lot of prior knowledge, upon hearing "discovering planets around other stars" most people would probably think something like this: Take a powerful telescope,...

Gravitational lensing

by | Mar 10, 2023 | All,Detection methods,Gravitational lensing | 0 Comments

How it works: According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, time and space are merged into one quantity called spacetime. Under this theory, massive objects...

Transit method

by | Mar 10, 2023 | All,Detection methods,Transit method | 0 Comments

Imaging an exoplanet directly is a difficult process that is only doable in a select few cases. Thus, we need indirect methods of detecting and studying these elusive...

Radial velocity method

by | Mar 10, 2023 | All,Detection methods,Radial velocity | 0 Comments

Because the direct imaging of planets around other stars is only feasible in select cases, the question arises: How, then, can we detect and study planets around other...

Neptune-sized planets

by | Mar 9, 2023 | All,Exoplanet Overview,Exoplanet types,Neptune-sized | 0 Comments

On the grand size scale between massive gas giants and smaller super-Earths, we find a class of medium-sized planets: Worlds with masses roughly between ten and 60...

Super-Earths

by | Mar 9, 2023 | All,Exoplanet Overview,Exoplanet types,Super-Earth | 0 Comments

Looking at all the planets of the Solar System arranged next to each other to scale, you can clearly see three categories: There’s the small rocky planets, with Earth...