Christian Marois Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science

First to image planets orbiting a star system other than our solar system using speckle/noise suppression for direct exoplanet imaging using advance image processing techniques.

The Story

Marois has earned many distinctions early in his career for developing new imaging methods allowing gas giant planets to be observed orbiting stars over 100 light years away. 

After completing his first postdoctoral project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and a brief research assignment at the University of California Berkeley late 2007, he became a research associate early 2008 at the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. He now splits his research time between developing the next generation exoplanet imager, the Gemini Planet Imager, and pursuing an exoplanet imaging survey using currently available instruments. In 2008, Dr Marois led the team that took the first image of another planetary system, the HR 8799bcd three planets system. This achievement was selected as the runner-up for best scientific discovery of 2008 by the prestigious Science magazine. Dr Marois and his Canadian collaborators were also named the “2008 scientist of the year”, a distinction given annually by the French CBC station.

Source: Origins Institute website.

Career ideas:

  • research scientist, physics
  • research scientist, electronics
  • research scientist, communications
  • research scientist, aerospace
  • research scientist, remote sensing
  • nuclear physicist
  • optics physicist
  • plasma physicist
  • solid state physicist
  • astrophysicist
  • cosmologist
  • experimental physicist

The Person

Residence
Victoria BC
Title
Astronomer
Office
NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
Status
Working
Degrees
  • PhD U. Montreal, 2004
Awards
  • Plaskett Medal for his doctoral thesis at Université de Montréal, 2005
Last Updated
September 10, 2015
Popularity
4574

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