Dr. Shane L. Larson visited Magellan's offices on March 17, 2016, and presented a Lunch & Learn program about the discovery of gravitational waves, Planet X, and other recent astronomical findings. Planet X is a name drawn from the hypothetical planet once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. But respected scientists from Caltech say it's not so hypothetical after all, and presented evidence saying as much. Planet X would be the ninth planet in our solar system.

Dr. Larson is a Research Associate Professor of Physics at Northwestern University, where he’s a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). He is also an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium.

He works in the field of gravitational wave astrophysics, specializing in the study of compact stars, binaries, and the galaxy.  He conducts research in gravitational wave astronomy with both the ground-based LIGO project, and future space-based detectors for NASA. It was a pleasure to have Dr. Larson visit Magellan and share his knowledge.

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