AOES Climate Dynamics Seminar: Goldman

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Habitable Worlds Observatory and the Search for Life Beyond the Solar System

Wed, 13 Sep, 1:30, TBD and via Zoom (https://gmu.zoom.us/j/5841495324)

Are we alone? This is something humans have philosophized about for ages. NASA has plans to place that question into the domain of the scientific method. We are working with partners across the world on missions that are designed to search for evidence of biological activity on Mars, in the icy worlds in our outer Solar System, and on the myriad exoplanets beyond the Solar System. In this talk we will focus on the mission concept designed to search for life on exoplanets - the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). HWO will be designed to look at reflected-light spectra of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of their host stars. This will allow scientists to analyze those spectra and look for signs of life. We will discuss how HWO will achieve this - both scientifically and from an engineering/technology standpoint. And we will showcase some of the work GMU students are doing that is relevant to this future great observatory.

AOES host: Alia Wofford