Life Beyond the Solar System: Free Lecture | Peninsula

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series | Los Altos

Founded in 1999, the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series lectures are presented on six Wednesday evenings during each school year at Foothill College. Speakers over the years have included Nobel-prize winners, members of the National Academy of Sciences and many other well-known scientists explaining astronomical developments in everyday language.

The series, moderated by Foothill College Astronomy instructor Andrew Fraknoi, is sponsored by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the SETI Institute, NASA’s Ames Research Center and Foothill College. Topics range from the exploration of the planets to the speeding up of the expanding universe; from planets around other stars to black holes at the centers of distant galaxies.

Admission is free and the public is invited. Seating is first come, first served. Arrive early to locate parking.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series | Los Altos

On Wednesday, Feb, 3, 2016, at 7 pm, Dr. Tori Hoehler (NASA Ames Research Center) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical talk on:
Innumerable Globes Like This One: Searching for Life Beyond our Solar System in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College, in Los Altos.

The talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, now in its 16th year.

In 1584, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno speculated that there are “innumerable globes like this one on which we live and grow.” It would be more than four centuries before the discovery of the first planets beyond our solar system lent support to Bruno’s idea, but thousands of such exoplanets have now been identified. Indeed, our Galaxy probably hosts billions of planetary systems. But how many of those globes are “like this one” and how can we determine whether life has taken hold there, too? In this talk Dr. Hoehler will discuss the science of searching for life beyond our solar system, and will take us from what we know today to how we will seek evidence of inhabited worlds in the future.

Tori Hoehler is a Research Scientist in the Space Sciences and Astrobiology Division at NASA Ames Research Center, where he has worked as part of the Curiosity Rover science team (exploring Mars) and on the science planning team for NASA’s new Europa Multiple Flyby Mission. He is a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and was the American Geophysical Union’s 2009 Carl Sagan Lecturer.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.