February 24, 2023 7-9PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: Can Exoplanets Keep Their Atmospheres Long Enough for Life to Develop?
Lecturer: Jessica Spake
Position: Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
Earthly life requires water and a stable atmosphere. Our atmosphere has protected liquid water on the Earth’s surface for billions of years - long enough for life to evolve. But since our planet formed, much of its atmosphere has been lost to space, and even today it is slowly trickling away. We seek life beyond our Solar System, and in the last decade we have found hundreds of rocky planets around other stars. Some of these planets seem like the right temperature for liquid water, and therefore life -- but do they still have atmospheres? Or have they been stripped bare by the heat and winds from their parent stars? I’ll explain how we study exoplanets which are losing their atmospheres; and the rocky road to finding truly habitable planets.