HYBRID – General Meeting – November 2022

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

TITLE:  Looking For Life: From Icy Comet Belts to the Habitable Zone

PRESENTATION:  One of the main goals of astronomical sciences is to unravel whether we are alone in the Universe. In the next decade, exoplanetary science will focus on developing the technology for direct observation of exoplanets orbiting in the so-called Habitable Zone (HZ) of their host stars. However, it takes more than orbiting the HZ for a given planet to be a relevant target for the search for exolife. Dr. Virginie Faramaz will talk about the best candidate systems, and how the ‘debris disks’ beyond the HZ zone—in reservoirs analogous to the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt and Asteroid Belt—carry the seeds of life to the system’s innermost parts. Dr. Faramaz will explain how planets, comets, and dust grains are interconnected, as well as the techniques and equipment used to get information on their components.

BIO:  Dr. Virginie Faramaz is a global specialist on planets and debris disk interactions. In her own words, she was “born and raised in Savoy in the French Alps, where we are crazy over fondue, raclette, tartiflette, and basically any dish that contains cheese, ham and potatoes.” Her PhD centered on theoretical aspects of planet-debris disks interactions. She worked with data obtained at ALMA in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. In 2017, she became an Exoplanet Science Initiative Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and also worked with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExSci) at Caltech in California. As an Assistant Research Professor at UA’s Steward Observatory, she uses the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer to further her projects. Dr. Faramaz enjoys teaching science to a variety of audiences, especially children.

Special Note: The Raymond E. White 21” telescope will be available to view through, from 7 P.M. to 10:30 P.M., courtesy of Steward Observatory.