When NASA’s Kepler mission glimpsed its first two Earth-size exoplanets with a decent chance of having liquid water on their surfaces a decade ago, mission head Bill Borucki turned to Lisa Kaltenegger, who is now associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, to confirm that the planets might be habitable, reports a feature in Quanta Magazine.
Her ultimate answer was a qualified yes. The planets might be suitable for life, or at least for liquid water…The caveat was that she would need more advanced observations to be sure.
“Kaltenegger has since become perhaps the world’s leading computer modeler of potentially habitable worlds,” author Joshua Sokol reports in the piece. “In simulating ersatz Earths and more speculative visions of living planets, Kaltenegger leverages the bizarre life and geology found on Earth to develop a more systematic set of expectations about what might be possible elsewhere.”
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Semiconductors are at the core of the economy and national security. Their importance makes them a target. Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, discusses how Cornell is helping to keep the semiconductor supply chain safe.
A party in the Temple of Zeus for retiring Zeus manager, Lydia Dutton. Left to right: A.R. Ammons, Cecil Giscombe, Dutton, David Burak, Phyllis Janowitz, James McConkey and Tony Caputi.
