June 18, 2007: Final Announcements
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OPENING RECEPTION AND REGISTRATION:

Do not miss our opening reception Monday evening from 7:30 - 9:30 PM. Views of the island at sunset from the conference center are supposed to be amazing and there will be plenty of food and wine, probably enough to call it dinner. The registration desk will be open during the entire time.

POSTERS AND TALKS:

All speakers should check the time allocated to their talk in the program online at http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Santorini2007/program.html (note a few recent minor changes). All times listed *include questions*.

If you need anything other than a laptop projector for your talk please let us know immediately.

We still have room for additional posters. Your last chance for submitting a poster abstract that will appear in the program is TODAY (Monday) by 4:00 PM CDT. Late posters can be shown, space permitting, but they will not be listed in the program and will be located further away from the central area of the conference center.

Posters should be printed so that they fit within the following MAXIMUM SIZE: 70 cm width x 125 cm height. Mounting supplies (pushpins etc.) will be provided at the center. If possible please set up your poster Monday evening during the opening reception. The location of your poster will be indicated with your number and title.

INTERNET ACCESS AT THE MEETING:

Free wireless internet access will be provided at the conference center. Public computers or (wired) ethernet connections will *NOT* be available at the center, but should be easy to find at Internet cafes around Fira.

PROGRAM BOOKLET:

We will distribute an up-to-date printed schedule at the meeting, but *not* a full booklet of abstracts. All talk and poster abstracts are available online (just click on the title of the presentation). In addition, we will make available on the web site a pdf file containing all talk and poster abstracts, which you can print and bring with you if you wish.

ADDITIONAL LOCAL INFORMATION:

Here is a very useful online guide to Santorini that includes pdf maps: http://www.santoriniguidebook.gr/

Weather: currently sunny, highs around 85 F (30 C), lows around 70 F (22 C): http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/WLGSR.html
However, note that a real heat wave is possible around the time of our conference...



June 5, 2007: Reminders
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1) The deadline for submitting poster abstracts is this Thursday (6/7). See below for instructions.

2) We have received some funding from NSF for support of US participants. Those of you in need of financial support should email Fred Rasio <rasio@northwestern.edu> immediately.

3) We plan to organize a special poster viewing session with free lunch provided at the conference center right after the end of the morning session on Wednesday, June 27.

4) The (beautiful) conference poster is online as a (7 MB!) pdf file at http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Santorini2007/JPG/ExSS_poster.pdf



May 24, 2007: Third General Announcement
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1) CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

The full conference schedule including all invited talks is now online at http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Santorini2007/program.html

Note that there will not be any contributed talks. Our schedule is quite full and there is little room left for last-minute changes at this point.

We will start on Monday, June 25, with an evening reception and registration at the conference center (7:30 - 9:30 PM). Then each day starts at 9 AM with a morning session lasting until 12:30 PM, and continues with an afternoon session from 4 PM - 7:30 PM (note that normal dinner time in Greece is much later than this, typically not before 9:30 PM).

2) CALL FOR POSTER PAPERS

We will be able to accommodate up to 120 posters on display throughout the meeting at the conference center. With 200 registered participants this number could in principle be exceeded, so we will give priority for posters to those who are *not* invited speakers, and we are setting a limit of one poster per registered participant. This should ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to present their results.

Participants who wish to bring a poster paper should send us, by email to Sarah Beverton <beverton@northwestern.edu>, a title, author list, and abstract (1-page maximum) in the body of the email message (simple plain TeX for math and symbols is OK but no html please). The deadline for abstract submission is ** THURSDAY, JUNE 7. **

To help us sort papers, please indicate *one* category from the following list that best matches your topic:

Observations - RV searches
Observations - Transits
Observations - Others
Planets in Star Clusters and around Neutron Stars
Planets around Evolving Stars and White Dwarfs
Planets in Binaries
Planet Formation - Theory and Simulations
Close-In Planets - Formation and Structure
Dynamical Evolution
Young Stars and Clusters
Atmospheres - Modeling and Observations
Future Techniques and Projects
Habitability

Posters should be printed so that they fit within the following MAXIMUM SIZE: ** 70 cm width x 125 cm height. ** (Note that this is rather narrow and tall compared to the US standard, e.g., at AAS meetings).

3) FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

We expect to receive two small grants from NASA and the NSF that will allow us to provide some financial assistance to junior participants from US institutions, and to cover the registration fee for all participants in the "Habitability" sessions (Friday afternoon).

Preference will be given to students and postdocs who are invited speakers and to women and minorities. Please send requests by email ASAP to Fred Rasio <rasio@northwestern.edu> with details about your needs and a brief justification.

4) LOCAL INFORMATION

Please continue to check our web site for additional announcements and local information as we get closer to the start of the conference.

The deadline for making a hotel reservation through the conference organizers has passed and all conference hotels are now fully booked. However, many other hotels in Fira still have available rooms covering a wide range of rates. If you have not yet made your reservations, please do so immediately through your own travel agent.

5) PROCEEDINGS

Proceedings of the conference will be published in the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) Conference Series. The registration fee includes the cost of one book for each participant. All presentations by invited speakers will be included in the proceedings. In addition, although we discourage it, poster presenters will be able to submit a 2-page extended abstract if they wish to have a record of their contribution in the published proceedings. More information will be posted on the conference web site by early July.



February 27, 2007: Second General Announcement
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1) REGISTRATION DEADLINE AND HOTEL RESERVATIONS

The registration deadline is Friday, *** March 16 ***, 2007 and the registration fee is 200 euros (250 euros after the deadline). See http://exss.conferences.gr/index.html?id=3921 for payment information (credit cards accepted).

The conference center we have reserved can accommodate a maximum of 200 participants, but we already have close to 200 pre-registrations and about 50 (paid) registrations. Therefore, it is possible that we may have to close registration before the March 16 deadline. We encourage everybody to register early! If more than 200 people try to register, we will have to put some of you on a waiting list.

A number of hotels close to the conference center in Fira are offering special rates for conference participants. The deadline for making your hotel reservation at the special conference rate is April 30, 2007. Reservations must be made through the local organizers; see http://exss.conferences.gr/index.html?id=3994 for details. Since many participants will also want to spend a few days in Athens before or after the conference, we have also arranged for special rates at a few Athens hotels.

2) CONFERENCE PROGRAM

The conference will start with an opening reception on Monday evening, June 25, followed by four full days of scientific sessions. There will be four sessions each day: two in the morning and two in the late afternoon/evening. A tentative program is available at http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Santorini2007/program.html

This tentative program lists all speakers invited to date and their assigned topics (please note that these are not yet real talk titles). We will be sending more invitations in the next few weeks. A first complete draft schedule including talk titles and times will be available by the end of April. Depending on how the program fills up there may be some time left for a few short contributed talks. However, all participants are welcome to bring a poster paper, as we expect to have plenty of space for posters at the conference center.

3) TRAVEL TO SANTORINI

Santorini is an extremely popular destination during the summer and we encourage you to book your flights as early as possible. The most common way to travel to the island is to fly to Athens and then either fly or take a ferry (from Piraeus) to Santorini. Flights from Athens to the island are on small planes which fill up quickly; they are not very frequent and are often booked several months in advance. Another possibility is to fly through Crete. During the high summer season, some European airlines may also have special direct flights to Santorini from major cities outside Greece. For help with your travel plans you may want to contact the local conference organizers:

Heliotopos Conferences
Phone: +30 210 9730697
Fax: +30 210 9767208
E-mail: conf@heliotopos.net

4) FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

We *may* be able to provide some financial assistance to junior participants from the USA and Poland (only those two countries) in the form of a travel subsidy (covering some fraction of the airfare to Greece). This will probably not be confirmed before end of March at the earliest. Note that *all* participants (including invited speakers) are required to pay the registration fee.



November 26, 2006: First General Announcement
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FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF A CONFERENCE ON

"EXTREME SOLAR SYSTEMS"

SANTORINI, GREECE

June 25-29, 2007

This International Conference will be held on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the discovery of the first extrasolar earth-mass planets, around PSR 1257+12. This also happens to coincide approximately with the 60th birthday of their discoverer, Alex Wolszczan. The main scientific themes of the meeting include the detection and characterization of earth-like planets (using all presently available and future techniques), planets in extreme environments (dense star clusters, binaries), planets around evolved stars (giants, white dwarfs, pulsars), and all "extreme precision" measurements.

More information at http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Santorini2007/.

PRE-REGISTRATION: If you would like to receive future announcements by email please send a short message to Sarah Beverton <beverton@northwestern.edu> telling us how likely you are to attend. Also let us know by email if you would be interested in presenting a talk, and on what topic(s).

TENTATIVE PROGRAM:

I. Planets in Extreme Environments - Detection

1. Planets around main-sequence and giant stars
- status of RV and transit surveys
- RV searches for planets around giant stars
- observational evidence for giants swallowing planets

2. Extremely hot/close-in planets
- hot Jupiters and Neptunes
- super-Earths

3. Planets in binary systems
- results of direct imaging surveys
- RV surveys
- results from astrometry

4. Planets in dense stellar systems
- planets in globular clusters
- Galactic bulge planets
- Rogue planets

5. Planets around compact remnants

- direct imaging of planets around white dwarfs
- planets around pulsating white dwarfs
- observations of disks around compact objects
- pulsar planets

II. Planets in Extreme Environments - Formation and Dynamics

1. Planet formation theories
- terrestrial planet formation
- giant planet formation

2. Migration and dynamics
- forming extremely hot planets and super-Earths
- extreme eccentricities
- destroying planets that get too close

3. Planetary systems around evolving stars
- planets around intermediate-mass MS stars
- evolving stars and planetary dynamics

4. Planets around compact objects
- extremely evolved planetary systems
- planets around massive stars
- "second chance" planets

5. Rogue planets
- occurence in dense stellar systems
- limits to "free floater" formation
- distinguishing giant planets and brown dwarfs

III. Extreme Precision Measurements

1. Pushing current techniques
- limits to RV observations and dynamical modeling
- high-precision transit observations and timing

2. Extreme planetary atmospheres
- results from transit observations
- theoretical developments

3. Progress and future plans
- astrometry from the ground
- astrometry from space
- microlensing
- direct imaging

4. Toward Earth-like planets
- detection and properties sub-Neptune planets
- frequency of occurence: predictions, speculations
- upcoming and future search projects




Physics and Astronomy Department
Northwestern University
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Penn State University