R. Paul Butler
Robert Paul Butler | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 1960 (age 65) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | San Francisco State University, University of Maryland, College Park |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | San Francisco State University, Anglo-Australian Observatory, Carnegie Institution for Science |
| External media | |
|---|---|
| Audio | |
| The search for exoplanets, Adam Levy, Knowable Magazine, February 15, 2022 | |
| Video | |
| Paul Butler and the Search for Habitable Planets, Carnegie Science, January 9, 2013 |
Robert Paul Butler (born April 1960) is an astronomer and staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who searches for extrasolar planets.
As of November 2020, he and his team have discovered over half of the planets found orbiting nearby stars. He is noted for his pioneering work in Doppler spectroscopy, a method used to detect stars having orbiting planets by measuring the "wobble" induced by the gravitational forces between the star and its orbiting planet(s).