When: Friday, September 30, 2022, 2:30 PM - 3:30 PMWhere: Physics (G. O. Jones building) room 610 & online
Speaker: Paul Rimmer (Cambridge)
Signs of Life and Its Origins on Exoplanets
The study of the origins of life and the search for life on other planets are closely linked. Origins scenarios that are connected to observable exoplanet properties can be used to make predictions about target planets for the search for life. The prerequisites for origins scenarios themselves predict characteristic spectral signatures: prebiosignatures. I will discuss work in Cambridge to connect a specific origins scenario, the cyanosulfidic scenario, to life and its origins on exoplanets. I will give an overview of new experiments to test the scenario and atmospheric models of the atmospheric spectra of predicted tracers of this scenario. I will finish by talking about how origins scenarios can be linked to biosignatures, and the gaps in our understanding that affect the strength and utility of these links.