Time Machines & Spaceships: The Search for Life (A Free, Virtual Lecture)

Registration Required. Go to: https://bit.ly/SearchForLife

Hamptons Observatory, and co-host Suffolk County Community College, are pleased to present a free, virtual lecture by Dr. Heather Graham from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The search for life, and for signs of life, beyond our own planet confronts us with myriad challenges—technical, analytical and epistemological. Current strategies for detecting life rely mainly on the identification of well-established and widely accepted features associated with contemporary life. But how do we search for signs of life that may have an unknowable, unfamiliar biochemistry? As we explore farther out in the solar system where a common heritage with Earth is less likely, it becomes more necessary to design life detection approaches based on fundamental features and mechanistic models of biological systems. It also becomes more imperative to incorporate our knowledge of the abiotic chemical, physical and geologic processes that provide environmental context for our observations. In this discussion, Dr. Graham will explore guiding principles for designing a life detection framework that avoids the overuse of analogy and incorporates the limits of parsimony when assessing biosignatures. We will consider methods for extracting the meaning from the vast array of data obtained via planetary explorations and from such missions as OSIRIS-Rex which, in September, 2023, returned samples from Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid. From early Earth to the asteroid Bennu, clues for how to search for life span from deep time and appear throughout our solar system.

Dr. Heather Graham is an organic geochemist who leads the Agnostic Biosignature Collective at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. They served as the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures and was a founding member of the Network for Life Detection, a NASA funded Research Coordination Network. Dr. Graham’s research concerns span exploration of abiotic organic systems preserved in primordial extraterrestrial materials, as well as novel technologies and techniques for detecting life. Dr. Graham is a member of the OSIRIS-Rex science team and the Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” Rover team. Dr. Graham also works on reconstruction of terrestrial environments in Earth’s distant past in order to understand biosignature preservation and critical evolutionary innovations. Dr. Graham earned a Ph.D., in Geosciences and Biogeochemistry from Pennsylvania State University, and an A.B. in Chemistry from Occidental College.

Hamptons Observatory extends its deepest thanks to Dr. Graham for generously taking the time to share her expertise and to co-host Suffolk County Community College for its kind collaboration

Hamptons Observatory (HO), a 501(c)(3) New York State nonprofit, has served the community since 2005. Its mission: to foster interest in science, particularly astronomy, through educational programs. Lectures, star parties, portable planetarium shows and other events are held frequently and often in collaboration with other nonprofit organizations. HO has an observatory in East Hampton that it is endeavoring to restore and to make accessible (in-person and remotely) to students, researchers, educators and the general public. Hamptons Observatory offers all of its public programs free-of-charge (although donations are much appreciated) so that everyone can learn about and enjoy the wonders of their universe. Visit www.HamptonsObservatory.org to learn more and to join our email list for news and event notices. To make a tax-deductible donation, please go to https://bit.ly/HO-Zeffy. Thanks!