Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
by Lisa Kaltenegger
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Author speaks via video + explanatory images
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Dr. Ben Miles reaches out to the author and her team regarding their work at Cornell University, asking the question “Why is alien life so hard to find?” The author’s research suggests that we must leave behind our “Earth bias” and look for life that may not be based on water or carbon. Kaltenegger speaks about a technique called transit spectroscopy, or observing the light from a star as an exoplanet passes in front of it and then using that data to find out about the planet’s atmosphere, looking for signs that are signatures of life in the cosmos.
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Cool Worlds Podcast hosts author Lisa Kaltenegger
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The author begins by discussing her background in both science and engineering. She says that if she could go back in time to investigate one thing, it would be to see how life started. We have a lot of knowledge about what life is, but not about how to get from non-life to life. Life may have started on the surface of the Earth in a small pond, or on the bottom of the ocean, or in a little piece of water on an ice shelf that froze and unfroze, but Kaltenegger emphasizes that the discussion is “ongoing.”
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Author presents live and shares slideshow
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In this live presentation at The Royal Institution, Kaltenegger says that although we don’t yet know if there is life in the cosmos, for the first time we have the tools to find out. She asks the audience to count five stars every time they go out at night, and to know that one in five has a planet at the right distance (not too hot, not too cold) to possibly be a world; this one-in-five is something we know from NASA’s Kepler mission, launched in 2009.
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Lisa Kaltenegger, an award-winning astrophysicist and astrobiologist from Kuchl, Austria, is the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell and an Associate Professor of Astronomy. She is a leading expert in modeling habitable worlds and their spectral fingerprints. Kaltenegger serves on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee and the NASA senior review of operating missions. She is also a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS Mission and the NIRISS instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Publications
The New York Times: She Dreams of Pink Planets and Alien Dinosaurs
The Guardian: ‘We live in a golden time of exploration’: astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger on the hunt for signs of extraterrestrial life
The Times: Alien Earths by Lisa Kaltenegger review — why ET might be out there
New Scientist: The hunt for alien planets and extraterrestrial life
Financial Times: Alien Earths — fascinating adventures in the cosmos
Washington Post: 'Alien Earths' by Lisa Kaltenegger book review
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