[photo credit: Carnegie Science]
When a giant exoplanet passes too close to its host star, the gravitational forces can tear its atmosphere away — leaving behind an exposed core that orbiting planets almost never show us. Vissapragada, the George Ellery Hale Distinguished Scholar at Carnegie Science Observatories in Pasadena, studies those stripped remnants. More than 6,000 worlds have now been discovered beyond our solar system, according to Carnegie Science, and what lies beneath their surfaces remains largely beyond reach. The stripped ones, he argues, are a rare exception.
He will make that case to a free public audience on Monday, April 13, in a lecture titled “How To Look Inside An Exoplanet” at Rothenberg Hall at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. According to Carnegie Science’s own description, these remnant cores provide “an astonishing opportunity to peer into would-be giant exoplanets” — a window that intact planets simply do not offer.
The lecture is the fourth and final installment of Carnegie Science’s 24th season of its Astronomy Lecture Series at The Huntington, a free public program that has run every spring at the neighboring institution since 2002.
Vissapragada, who joined Carnegie’s Pasadena campus in late 2024 after a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for Astrophysics, is among the most decorated young astronomers currently working in the field. In December 2025, he was named to the 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Science category — one of 600 North American early-career leaders recognized across 20 industries, according to Carnegie Science. He is also, according to Carnegie Science, Co-Principal Investigator of the largest exoplanet program ever awarded in the Hubble Space Telescope’s history: the Search for Transiting Exoplanets in Lyman-alpha, or STELa, a 625-orbit, three-year survey. In the year before that recognition, he had raised over $1 million for his own research program, according to Carnegie Science.
“In 2024, when we made the decision to expand exoplanet expertise to our Carnegie Observatories community, he is exactly the kind of scientist we were looking for — someone who seeks interesting connections, develops novel approaches, and crosses disciplinary boundaries in the name of discovery,” Carnegie Science President John Mulchaey said in the organization’s announcement of Vissapragada’s Forbes selection. “I am excited to see what his future holds and confident that it will include great science.”
Vissapragada earned his PhD from Caltech in 2022. The position he now holds at Carnegie is named for George Ellery Hale, the astronomer who founded the Observatories and played a central role in establishing Caltech — making Vissapragada part of a Pasadena scientific lineage that stretches back more than a century.
The three preceding lectures in this year’s series covered the ancient universe, the origins of water on rocky planets, and dark matter. All were held in Rothenberg Hall, a 374-seat auditorium within The Huntington’s Education and Visitor Center, and were livestreamed on Carnegie Science’s YouTube channel.
CARNEGIE SCIENCE ASTRONOMY LECTURE: HOW TO LOOK INSIDE AN EXOPLANET | Date & Time: Monday, April 13, 2026, 7:00 p.m. PT (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; musical performance at 7:00 p.m.; lecture at 7:30 p.m.) | Venue: Rothenberg Hall at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino, CA 91108 | Phone Number: (626) 405-2100 | Website: https://carnegiescience.edu/how-look-inside-exoplanet
