New Worlds, New Discoveries: A major leap in the search for life beyond our solar system
Level LL (54-100)
Speakers: Michaël Gillon, Principal Investigator of the SPECULOOS and TRAPPIST exoplanet searches & Research Scientist at the STAR Institute of the University of Liège, Belgium & Julien de Wit, Postdoctoral Associate in EAPS.
In the last two decades, thousands of planets have been found beyond our solar system. Among them, a few dozen are potentially habitable, i.e. they could harbor surface conditions suitable for life. However, until now, we have only been able to speculate, as detecting life on these planets was totally out of reach, even with the largest existing – or planned – telescopes. But a new project called SPECULOOS has just changed the game, by detecting terrestrial planets around nearby small stars that are well-suited for the detection of life with *upcoming* observatories. Join us to hear what the TRAPPIST exoplanet search, the prototype of SPECULOOS, has just achieved: an amazing result that provides humanity with its first opportunity to find life around another star. Reception to follow.
