A Workshop on Searching for Life Across Space and Time

ABOUT

The Space Studies Board’s Committee on Searching for Life Across Space and Time is hosting a community workshop on December 5-6, 2016 at the Beckman Center in Irvine, CA to explore the current status of activities to detect extraterrestrial life in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems. The workshop will feature a series of sessions that will feature presentations from experts on current understanding of the environmental (physical and chemical) limits of life, life’s interactions with the environments of planets and moons, habitable environments in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems, extraterrestrial biosignatures, life detection capabilities remotely or in situ in the solar system and from afar on extrasolar worlds, instrumentation, and targeted precursor research.

POSTER DEADLINE IS CLOSED

The Committee is also soliciting posters as critical inputs to the workshop. Posters will be displayed throughout the meeting and will be the focus of a dedicated session on December 5th. Posters should address any of the session topics outlined above. Your poster must be able to fit on a 48 inch x 48 inch poster board. *Please note there is no option for printing posters on-site.

Please register as a poster presenter and submit your abstract through our registration form. Because of space limitations, not all posters may be accepted. We will not accept walk-in posters. Those who submitted poster abstracts by November 7th will be notified if their poster has been accepted by November 11th. Those who submit poster abstracts after November 7th will be notified of their submission status by November 25th.

REGISTRATION DEADLINES

For in-person participants, registrations will be accepted through the day of the event, subject to space availability. However, we can not provide pre-printed name badges to those who register after November 25th.

DIRECTIONS AND LOGISTICS

The Beckman Center is located at 100 Academy Dr, Irvine, CA 92617. The closest airport to the Beckman Center is John Wayne Orange County Airport (SNA).

Parking is available on-site at no charge and consists of 172 regular spaces, 5 handicapped spaces, and 100 overflow spaces.

EVENT WEBCAST

Watch the live webcast of this workshop here: workshop webcast. The webcast recordings will be available approximately 1-2 weeks after the event on the workshop's website. Please note that due to logistical constraints, online audience participation during question and answer sessions will not be possible.

CONTACT INFORMATION

For questions about the event, please contact Dionna Williams at dwilliams@nas.edu. For more information about the workshop, including the statement of task, please visit the Space Studies Board website. A preliminary agenda is outlined below and will be updated closer to the event.

AGENDA (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

View PDF of the agenda here

Day 1: December 5, 2016

Session 1: Setting the Stage

• How likely is it that life exists off the Earth? - John Baross, University of Washington
• Current understanding of the environmental limits of life and life's interactions wiht its environment - Tori Hoehler, NASA Ames
• Is life a cosmic imperative: How did thermodynamics force life into existence? - Eric Smith, Santa Fe Institute

Session 2: Habitable environments in the Solar System

• Habitable environments on present and ancient Mars - John Grotzinger, Caltech
• Habitable environments on ocean worlds and a summary of the Ocean Worlds Life Detection Workshop - Kevin Hand, JPL
• Planning for the Exploration of Mars and Ocean Worlds - Ellen Stofan, NASA

Session 3: Exoplanets

• Current state of knowledge of exoplanets and their habitability and a summary of the Exoplanet Biosignatures Workshop - Vikki Meadows, University of Washington
• Extrasolar biosignatures: Thinking out of the box - William Bains, MIT
• The First Spaceborne Direct Imaging Exoplanet Mission: WFIRST Coronagraph - and Starshade? - Margaret Turnbull, SETI Institute
• Prospects for ground-based characterization of Proxima Centauri b - Matteo Brogi, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Practical biosignatures that can be exploited to search for life in situ in the solar system and from afar on extrasolar worlds - Discussion

Session 4: Poster Display and Reception

Day 2: December 6, 2016

Session 5: Life Detection Techniques

• Life Detection: 40 years after Viking - Ben Clark, Space Science Institute
• Signatures of life as we know it - Gary Ruvkun, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Signatures of life as we don't know it - Steve Benner, the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution

Session 6: Instrumentation

• In-situ life detection, Ocean Worlds - Morgan Cable, JPL
• Life detection capabilities of LUVOIR and HabEx - Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA GSFC
• In-situ life detection, Mars - Jen Eigenbrode, NASA GSFC

Session 7: Future Directions - Breakout Groups

Focus question: How could targeted research over the next 5-10 years help advance the state of the art for life detection, including instrumentation and precursor research.

Discussion topics will include:

• In situ detection of life as we know it
• In situ detection of life as we don't know it
• Remote detection of life as we know it
• Remote detection of life as we don't know it

Session 8: Conclusions

• Summary of key points raised during the workshop
• Concluding remarks

Header Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

FAQs

Are there ID requirements or an age limit to enter the event?

No.

Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?

No.