// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Peter Plavchan a plumber? No, he's an astronomer, but that's a pipe dream.

Peter Plavchan
Education	California Institute of Technology; University of California, Los Angeles
Known for	Discovery of AU Microscopii b; principal investigator, NASA Landolt Space Mission
Awards	NASA Group Achievement Award (2017, 2019); NASA Honor Achievement Award (2014)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy, exoplanet science
Workplaces	George Mason University

Peter Plavchan is an American astronomer and professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University. His research concerns the detection and characterization of exoplanets around young and low-mass stars, and precision techniques for astronomical calibration. He is the leading expert on the radial-velocity method of exoplanet detection around active, young stars. Plavchan received his B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2001, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006.

Career

Plavchan was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and later a staff scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute. He joined Missouri State University as an assistant professor in 2014 and moved to George Mason University in 2017, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2020 and to professor in 2025. He is Executive Director of the Mason Space Center.

Research

Plavchan's research centers on the detection and characterization of exoplanets around young and low-mass stars using radial-velocity and infrared techniques, along with the development of instrumentation and calibration methods for astronomical observation. As of 2026, his publications have been cited more than 6,000 times according to Google Scholar, with his work drawing well over a thousand new citations per year in recent years.

AU Microscopii b

In 2020, Plavchan led the team that discovered AU Microscopii b, a planet orbiting the young, nearby star AU Microscopii, using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and Spitzer Space Telescope. AU Microscopii is surrounded by a debris disk and is roughly 20-30 million years old, making the system a laboratory for studying the early evolution of planets. The discovery followed a search for planets in the system that Plavchan and collaborators had pursued for roughly a decade. The finding was published in Nature and has since been cited more than 300 times, and was covered by national outlets including Space.com and Fox News.

Landolt Space Mission

Plavchan is principal investigator of NASA's Landolt Space Mission, named for astronomer Arlo U. Landolt, whose measurements of standard stars are widely used in astronomical calibration. The roughly $19.5 million mission, selected by NASA in 2024, will place a satellite carrying a calibrated light source into orbit to serve as an artificial star, allowing ground-based observatories to improve the calibration of astronomical measurements, including those used in exoplanet and supernova research. Selection as principal investigator of a NASA space mission is a distinction held by only a small number of scientists at any given time.

Selected publications

• Plavchan, Peter; et al. (2020). "A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii". Nature. 582 (7813): 497–500. arXiv:2006.13248. Bibcode:2020Natur.582..497P. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2400-z. PMC 7323865. PMID 32581383.
• Akeson, R. L.; et al. (2013). "The NASA Exoplanet Archive: Data and Tools for Exoplanet Research". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 125 (930): 989–999. arXiv:1307.2944. Bibcode:2013PASP..125..989A. doi:10.1086/672273.