What makes a planet habitable? – From life on Earth to life on extrasolar planets

Talk by  Patrick Barth, University of St Andrews

In the last 25 years we have found thousands of planets around other stars, but so far we were not able to detect life on any other body than Earth. After a short introduction into the diversity of extrasolar planets, I will try to shed some light on the fascinating research on the origin of life and to answer some questions regarding the possibility of life on extrasolar planets: What does life need to start? Which environments might be harmful to life? What exotic conditions on a planet can we imagine that can still give rise to and host life? And maybe most importantly: How can we detect life on another planet?

Patrick Barth
PhD student in Astronomy and Geology at the University of St Andrews and the Institute for Space Research in Graz, Austria. Before that I did my Bachelor (2013-17) and Master (2017-19) in Physics at Heidelberg University, Germany. During my Masters I spent one year (2017-18) at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Image Credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech