The Siegal Lifelong Learning Program’s Origins Science Scholars series continues Tuesday, April 25, at 5:30 p.m. at the Tinkham Veale University Center.
Paul Butler, a staff scientist at The Carnegie Institution for Science, will give a talk titled “Alien Worlds and the Origin of Science.”
Over the past 20 years, more than a thousand extrasolar planets have been found. Butler and his collaborators are building precise systems to survey the nearest stars and have found hundreds of planets, including five of the first six planets, the first Saturn-mass planet, the first Neptune-mass planet, the first terrestrial mass planet and the first multiple planet system.
In August 2016, they announced the discovery of a potentially habitable planet around the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. This discovery highlights the latest statistical evidence from Kepler and ground-based Doppler surveys that some 30 percent of stars have potentially habitable planets.
This event costs $40 for members of the lifelong learning program and $48 for nonmembers.
Registration is available online.