Michael Telesco – Discovery of the first Solar System-like planetary architecture

Join us in the WAS Classroom on August 18, 2026 for this live lecture with Micael Telesco. The event will be live-streamed on YouTube and as a Webinar on Zoom, but we’d love to see you in the classroom at the Westport Observatory. As always, the talk will be posted on our YouTube channel afterwards.

Michael will discuss the discovery of Cooper-d, a Mars-sized planet on a 150-day orbit, from method to discovery: how a deep-learning pipeline opens up the long-period desert where small planets hide, how Cooper-d was detected and validated, how it completes a scaled analog of our own Solar System, and what its architecture reveals about how such systems form.

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WAS member Michael Telesco is an incoming freshman at Stanford University having recently graduated from New Canaan High School in New Canaan, Connecticut. Michael has been an astronomy enthusiast since he was a kid, but started to engage in astronomy work during a trip to the Florida Keys where he saw dark skies for the first time. This cultivated his immense passion for astrophotography, which trickled its way into astrophysics. Michael has since won many astrophotography awards, including Astrobin Image of the Days, the Astronomical League’s Youth Imaging Award, Dark Sky International’s Youth Astrophotography Award, “Best in Digital Art” at the CT Scholastic Art Awards, and more. He is also the second youngest person ever to discover a new nebula, designated TelCom 1, a confirmed planetary nebula in Vela. Michael has also been engaged in astronomy outreach during his high school years, running local stargazing events in his community, as well as running social media and websites for Connecticut dark sky initiatives. He also ran the astronomy club at his school, where they secured a $1,500 grant from NASA’s TechRise program to conduct quantum dot research in space. Outside of astronomy, he loves making films, doing daytime photography, playing volleyball, and hanging out with friends. Michael is planning on pursuing astrophysics in college where he will be majoring in Physics with an astronomy concentration.

The next Cal’s Corner is TBD.