An interdisciplinary study has grown out of the search for the origins of life, and collaborative plans for the next twenty years of this hunt are underway. Our panel will discuss the potential of three high-tech pieces of equipment: Starshade, a flower-shaped shield to block excess light and reveal distant Earth size planets; TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite that will measure the brightness of roughly 500,000 stars; and the famed James Webb Space Telescope, infrared successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The technology will advance the research in many areas of the research. In labs, what do chemists hope to cook up in the next twenty years? Thinking about the future has biologists, astronomers, and physicists alike working collaboratively to be ready for what’s on the horizon.
The World Science Festival’s annual salon series offers in-depth conversations with leading scientists, extending the discussion of the Festival’s premiere public programs to graduate students, postdocs, faculty and well-informed members of the general public.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.