Inventing NASA Space Exploration Technologies for our Blue Planet & Beyond

Is life unique to Earth in the universe? If so, how can we better explore space while preserving and protecting life as we know it? How can space exploration benefit us all and what can it teach us? These are the fundamental questions that drive my work. My research focuses on inventing, developing, and testing next-generation sensing technologies for exploring and studying the natural world and extreme environments that serve as analogs for planetary exploration. My investigations aim to extend our capabilities for understanding and protecting life on Earth as well as aiding in the search for life elsewhere in the universe.

In this talk, I share airborne, spaceborne, and seaborne technologies I am developing that can image the seafloor and animals through waves, map our blue planet at scale, probe extreme environments and other worlds, enable flight on electric fields, and plumb the depths just as astronomical telescopes explore the cosmos.

Space affords humanity a unique vantagepoint to monitor and protect the only known biosphere in the cosmos at a crucial inflection point, as well as a gateway for exploring our celestial backyard and beyond. The search for extraterrestrial life thus far has come up short, but the search for extraoceanic life is just beginning. We have hit the celestial jackpot with the discovery of multiple oceans across the solar system, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn like Europa and Enceladus, that may harbor salty liquid water oceans bigger than our own. Within their depths, new life and a new perspective of our place in the cosmos may lie in wait.

Speaker: Ved Chirayath, University of Miami