The Hycean Paradigm in the Search for Life Elsewhere
The Hycean Paradigm in the Search for Life Elsewhere
223nd Lecture Series Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
Date: Wednesday 13 November 2024
Time: 19:30 - 21:00
Venue: Charles Wilson Building, Lecture Theatre 201
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Professor Nikku Madhusudhan
Website: www.royalphil.org/
The search for life elsewhere is one of the major frontiers of modern astronomy. A recently proposed new class of habitable exoplanets, called Hycean worlds, promises to expand and accelerate the search for planetary habitability and life elsewhere. Hycean planets are expected to be temperate, ocean-covered worlds with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.
Recently, the James Web Space Telescope detected a possible Hycean world, K2-18 b, with apparent multiple carbon-bearing molecules in its atmosphere. This lecture will describe new developments in the exploration of candidate Hycean worlds, and future prospects in the search for habitable environments and life beyond the solar system.
Nikku Madhusudhan is Professor of Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. He is a leading figure in the search for life outside our solar system. His research spans various aspects of extrasolar planets. He is credited with pioneering atmospheric retrieval methods for determining the atmospheric properties of exoplanets using spectroscopic observations, besides other important developments in the understanding of the atmospheres, interiors, formation conditions, and habitability of exoplanets.
Most recently, his work led to the identification of a new type of habitable planet, called Hycean worlds, and to the first detection of carbon-bearing molecules in a habitable-zone exoplanet, which could be a Hycean world. He is also part of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, a centre whose goal is to harness simultaneous breakthroughs in astrophysics, planetology, organic chemistry, biology and cognate disciplines to tackle one of the great interdisciplinary challenges of our time: to develop a deeper understanding of life, its emergence, and its distribution in the Universe.