James Kasting

Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences with a joint appointment in Meteorology and Atmospheric Science 

Habitable Zones and the Search for Life on Planets Around Other Stars

Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets orbiting nearby, and not-so-nearby, stars. But we still know very little about whether any of these planets might be habitable or whether any of them actually support life. We will learn more about this question when NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launches in October of this year. But real answers likely depend on constructing even more capable space telescopes that could launch 15-20 years from now. This talk will summarize what we know now about habitable exoplanets and what we might learn in the future.