The Search for Living Worlds Beyond the Solar System

One of the grandest and most enduring questions in human history has been whether we are alone in the Universe. While previous generations could only speculate about the possibility of life around other stars, in the coming decades NASA will develop and deploy the telescopes required to begin exploring the environments of distant worlds. But getting these challenging observations alone is not enough - we also need an improved understanding of what we should be looking for, and how we might interpret what we observe. In this talk Dr. Meadows will highlight work being done by her NASA Virtual Planetary Laboratory team to guide this search - including understanding the factors that lead to a planet being able to support life, and how we might recognize and assess signs of alien life on a distant world. She will also provide an overview of current and upcoming NASA space telescopes, and discuss their potential for exploring living worlds beyond our Solar System.

Speaker: Victoria Meadows, University of Washington