Margaret Turnbull

Margaret Turnbull at the World Science Festival in June 2008.

Margaret Carol Turnbull (* 1975) is an American astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore . She received her PhD in Astronomy in 2004 from the University of Arizona . Turnbull's areas of expertise are: "Habstars" (stars that seem suitable to offer favorable conditions for life), "Sun twins" and life possibilities on planets.

In 2002 she developed HabCat together with Jill Tarter . This is a catalog that contains solar systems that could theoretically harbor life or be habitable. In the following year, Turnbull selected 30 particularly suitable stars from the list, which contains over 5000 stars up to a maximum of 100 years of distance.

In 2006 Margaret Turnbull presented an even shorter list of two times only five stars each. The first five are intended to form the basis for the SETI , which scans radio waves with the Allen Telescope Array . These are ( Asterion , HD 10307 , HD 211415 , 18 Scorpii and 51 Pegasi ). The second list should contain the top candidates for the Terrestrial Planet Finder : ( Epsilon Indi , Epsilon Eridani , 40 Eridani , Alpha Centauri B and Tau Ceti ).

The asteroid (7863) Turnbull was named after her.

Web links

"The Search for Habitable Worlds: from the Terrestrial Planet Finder to SETI," Ph.D. thesis, 2004 (PDF) ( Memento from September 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ staffwriter: Gem Sorting: Finding the Next Earth. Astrobiology Magazine, January 21, 2004, accessed July 9, 2008 .
↑ staffwriter: HabStars: Speeding Up In the Zone. Astrobiology Magazine, November 3, 2007, accessed July 9, 2008 .
^ Habitable Star Systems. Sol Company, accessed July 9, 2008 .
^ Earl Lane: Astronomer Margaret Turnbull: A Short-List of Possible Life-Supporting Stars. AAAS, February 18, 2006, accessed July 9, 2008 .
↑ Müller, Michael: The best star candidates for the search for life and earth-like planets. Wissensnishorizont.de, February 23, 2006, archived from the original on August 27, 2013 ; Retrieved March 28, 2008 .

personal data
SURNAME	Turnbull, Margaret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Turnbull, Margaret Carol (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH	20th century

[astrobiology-1] staffwriter: Gem Sorting: Finding the Next Earth. Astrobiology Magazine, January 21, 2004, accessed July 9, 2008 .

[habstars-2] staffwriter: HabStars: Speeding Up In the Zone. Astrobiology Magazine, November 3, 2007, accessed July 9, 2008 .

[solstation-3] Habitable Star Systems. Sol Company, accessed July 9, 2008 .

[aaas-4] Earl Lane: Astronomer Margaret Turnbull: A Short-List of Possible Life-Supporting Stars. AAAS, February 18, 2006, accessed July 9, 2008 .

[majewski-5] Müller, Michael: The best star candidates for the search for life and earth-like planets. Wissensnishorizont.de, February 23, 2006, archived from the original on August 27, 2013 ; Retrieved March 28, 2008 .