Lecture 38: The Pale Blue Dot - Seeking Other Earths
Are there other Earths out there? Do they have life on them? This\nlecture looks at the search for ExoEarths - Earth-sized planets in the\nhabitable zones of their parent stars, and what we might learn from\nmeasuring them. The ultimate goal of all planet searches is to find\nother Earth's, what the late Carl Sagan so poetically called\nthe "pale blue dot" as seen from the depths of space. This lecture \ndiscusses what we might learn about such planets from studies of our own \nEarth, spectroscopic biomarkers that might reveal life, and variability \nstudies that might give us insight into surface features (continents \nand oceans) and weather (clouds and even climate). Recorded live on \n2009 Nov 19 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the Columbus campus of \nThe Ohio State University.