EVENTS For information on JPL tours and the speakers bureau, visit our PUBLIC SERVICES site. The Solar System Ambassador Program sponsors events in communities around the country. Find out how to become a volunteer Solar System Ambassador.		Topic - Pointing the Way to Exoplanetary Systems - New Initiatives in Space Astronomy and the Legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope Pointing the Way to Exoplanetary Systems - New Initiatives in Space Astronomy and the Legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope presented by Dr. John Trauger JPL Senior Research Scientist, Division of Earth and Space Science If you wish to view a tape of this show please contact Sherri Rowe-Lopez at (818) 354-6170. Thursday, December 11 The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA Friday, December 12 The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College 1570 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA Both lectures begin at 7 p.m. PST and run for approximately an hour. Admission is free. Seating is limited. For more information, call (818) 354-0112. How soon can we expect to see images of planetary systems orbiting the stars in our nearby galactic neighborhood? Space and ground-based astronomical observatories will play pivotal roles in the search for planetary systems other than our own. However, they all share the fundamental challenge of imaging planets in the presence of an overwhelming glare of starlight from their central stars. The path to these exoplanetary systems will follow new emerging technologies- building on the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope, and largely as an outgrowth of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder initiative. Direct observations of planetary systems will commence with pioneering space astronomy missions such as Kepler and Eclipse, the James Webb Space Telescope, and ultimately the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission. This presentation is an overview of the advances we may expect to see in the coming decade, in the astronomy of nearby planetary systems.