Dr. Christopher Burke’s research focuses on the discovery and characterization of rocky extrasolar planets providing detailed answers to the question of  “How many and what kinds of potentially habitable rocky planets like Earth exist in the Galaxy?”  Understanding the potential for life inside and outside the Solar System is an area of immense curiosity to the scientific, engineering, philosophical, and sociological endeavors of humanity.  As a Support Scientist on the MIT led TESS spacecraft mission, he looks forward to the spacecraft launch in anticipation of TESS identifying new worlds ideal for precise characterization of the planet’s bulk density and atmosphere characterization.