Presentations
Event Room 1
Are We Alone? Is Who Alone? Are They Alone?
Dr Charles Lineweaver,
Australian National University, Mount Stromlo Observatory
I will discuss the question "Are We Alone?" and review progress in trying to figure out what this question means. Who is "we"? Homo sapiens? "intelligent life"? Life in general? What is life? And what does life have to do with astronomy? As we learn more about the origin and evolution of the universe and about the prerequisites for the emergence of life, the connections between cosmology and biology are becoming more obvious and more quantifiable. Where and when in the universe did the first molecules form? Where and when did the first stars and terrestrial planets form? Where is the liquid water in the universe? Since life emerged early in the history of the Earth, does that mean that life is common in the universe? I will focus on the big picture and summarize our knowledge and speculations about cosmobiology and the astronomical origin(s?) of life in the universe.
Charles H. Lineweaver is the coordinator of the Australian National University’s Planetary Science Institute and holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences. He obtained an undergraduate degree in physics from Ludwig Maximillians Universitat, Munich, Germany and a PhD in astrophysics from the University of California at Berkeley.
He was a member of the COBE satellite team, led by George Smoot (2006 Physics Nobel Prize), that discovered the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Before his appointment at ANU, he held post-doctoral positions at Strasbourg Observatory and the University of New South Wales where he taught one of the most popular general studies courses "Are We Alone?"
His research areas include cosmology (determination of the age and composition of the universe) exoplanetology (the statistical analysis of exoplanets) and astrobiology ( using our new knowledge of cosmology to constrain life in the Universe). His research has been published in Science, Nature, the Astrophysical Journal, Astrobiology, Scientific American, American Journal of Physics, and Microbiology Australia.
He is the son of a high school biology teacher and has lived in or traveled through 65 countries, has spoken 4 languages semi-fluently at one time or another, and was a semi-professional soccer player in Germany. Personal homepage: http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley