Search for Life
- By Maggie Masetti
- September 16, 2014
- Comments Off on Search for Life
Recently NASA had a panel discussion of leading science and engineering experts to describe the scientific and technological roadmap that will lead to the discovery of potentially habitable worlds among the stars. This is such an exciting topic, especially with so many new worlds being discovered. The ultimate goal of course is not only to find a planet similar to ours around another star – but to definitively answer the question of whether or not we are alone.
The panel consisted of:
– Ellen Stofan (NASA’s chief scientist)
– John Grunsfeld (astronaut and associate administrator, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate) We interviewed him in 2009)
– John Mather (Nobel Laureate and Senior Project Scientist for JWST) We’ve interviewed him more than once.
– Sara Seager (MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at MIT)
– Dave Gallagher (director for Astronomy and Physics, JPL)
– Matt Mountain (director of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Telescope Scientist for JWST)
You can watch the panel in its entirety here:
And here are a few photos from it:
All photos credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
