Christopher Watson

I am the head of the Exoplanet Group within the Astrophysics Research Centre in the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen's University Belfast. My research interests lie with discovering and characterising planets orbiting other stars - known as exoplanets. This work naturally attracts a lot of public and press attention, and has led to a number of global press releases over the years. As a result I have written expert articles for the BBC News, as well as filmed for BBC Horizon, as well as many recorded and live radio and TV appearances in the UK, US and further afield.

My key interests lie with improving detection methods for 'weighing' exoplanets, in the push to confirming the first true (and so far, elusive!) Earth-twin world outside our own solar system. In addition, I dabble in characterising their atmospheres - and was recently part of a team that showed that it was possible with current techniques to find water in the atmospheres of super-Earths.