Franck Marchis has been a planetary researcher at the SETI Institute and the Carl Sagan Center since July 2007 and a researcher at the university of California at Berkeley. He has been using adaptive optics technology on 8-10m class telescopes which provide exquisite images as "if the telescope was in space" to study the wonders of our solar system. With his group, they search and study asteroid with moons, monitor the volcanic activity of Io and the atmosphere of giant planets. The future of planetary astronomy could be even brighter since new AO systems such as the Gemini Planet Imager will be able to study exoplanet, planets around other stars. Franck is also involved in the design of innovative instruments and space mission concepts.