“Alien Life and How to Find It” presented by Clara Sousa Silva
Professor Clara Sousa-Silva presents “Alien Life, and How to Find It”. Over the last few decades, scientists have found thousands of planets beyond our own. Some of those planets might be habitable, and perhaps even inhabited already; but how can we tell? Clara Sousa-Silva looks for signs of life on other planets using astronomical tools to detect faint signals emitted by potential alien biospheres. In this presentation, Clara draws on her experience investigating strange molecules on strange planets, and her efforts to answer the question: “Would we know life if we saw it?”
Professor Sousa-Silva is a quantum astrochemist and molecular astrophysicist. She investigates how molecules interact with light so that they can be detected on faraway worlds. She is currently an assistant professor at Bard College (US) and a Researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (Portugal).
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