ANL : Search for Life’s Origin and Future Beyond Earth

May 21, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Online
Speaker: Jian Gong, University of Wyoming

Abstract: We will embark on an interdisciplinary journey through time and space, seeking clues to life’s origins and the tantalizing possibility of its existence beyond Earth. By examining Earth’s geologic record, we unlock secrets from ancient fossils that provide a window into early life forms and their environments. We then explore general properties of life and how they interact with the environment, using these principles as guiding clues from the perspective of remote observers, exploring profound ecosystem-level, landscape, and atmospheric changes over deep time. These observations offer us a blueprint for identifying habitable conditions elsewhere. NASA’s cutting-edge missions to Mars and other celestial bodies furnish us with the tools and data to extend this search into the solar system, with each mission sharpening our strategies to detect life. As we cast our gaze outward, we synthesize these terrestrial lessons into a more robust framework, applying novel techniques and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations to enhance our chances of discovering extraterrestrial life, ultimately answering profound questions of where we come from and whether we are alone in the universe.