Exoplanets and the Search for Life in our Galaxy

Thursday, April 11th at 7:00 p.m.

Location:  Southworth Planetarium

Admission by donation

Dr. Henning Haack

Maine Mineral and Gem Museum

If life is common on habitable planets on other solar systems we will detect it within the next ten years. It will truly be the biggest scientific discovery of all times. Exoplanets are planets orbiting other stars than our own Sun. Even though we have assumed that there would be planets around other stars we did not detect the first one until 1992. Today, only 27 years later we have discovered close to 5000 exoplanets. We now know that planets are more common in the universe than stars and that habitable planets are also very common. The next logical step is to search for life on these planets. The telescopes designed to make this possible are being build and will be able to survey known habitable planets within ten years.

In the talk, Henning Haack, will talk about what the many discoveries of exoplanets have taught us about other solar systems, our own solar system and the potential for finding life elsewhere.