Apr 16
Frank Verbrugge Memorial Lecture
Please join us for Carleton's annual Frank Verbrugge Memorial Lecture, featuring Dr. Jessie Christiansen from the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at CalTech.
The Search for Earth 2.0
For thousands of years, we’ve wondered whether the Earth is unique, or if there are other Earths out there to find. Now, in the last 30 years, we’ve progressed from speculating whether planets exist around other stars to knowing that almost every star we see has planets. Ambitious planet searches have been probing further and further, finding planetary systems of an incredible – and incredibly surprising! – variety. However, we have yet to discover another planet that might be like Earth – a rocky planet orbiting just the right distance from a Sun-like star to have liquid water on its surface. NASA is planning a next-generation flagship telescope that will directly image Earth-like planets around nearby stars. In this talk I will cover the past, present, and future of our hunt for Earth 2.0.