Dr. Oppenheimer is primarily interested in comparative exoplanetary science, the study of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.  This nascent field is so young that we cannot, yet, image exoplanets.  His 600 square foot laboratory in the Rose Center is the birthplace of a number of new astronomical instruments designed to tackle the problem of exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy.  In March 2003, AMNH scientists successfully deployed the world's most sensitive coronagraph at the AEOS Telescope in Maui.  Dr. Oppenheimer is a member of the team specifying the scientific goals of NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission and is building part of a new planet imaging instrument for the International Gemini Observatory, one of the world’s largest telescopes. Dr. Oppenheimer also works on faint white dwarfs, the remnants of normal stars, and brown dwarfs, objects like stars that never contained sustained fusion reactions.