What can people on Earth learn about climate change from the long lost seas of Mars or the climate of Saturn? David Grinspoon, the award-winning author of Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life and Venus Revealed, will help answer this and other questions during the talk, “Climate Catastrophes in the Solar System: Lessons for Earth,” at Case Western Reserve University.
The free, public event is sponsored by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities and the Mars Research Group at Case Western Reserve and takes place April 4 at 7 p.m. in the Wolstein Research Building Auditorium.
Grinspoon will discuss the evolutionary history of other planets and apply that knowledge to climate change on Earth to understand what occurred on Mars, Venus or Saturn so that it can be prevented from happening here. Along the way, the audience will learn about the solar system, snowball planets and more.
Grinspoon, a NASA-funded planetary scientist, researches the history of Earth-like planets and advises NASA on space travel. He is the curator of astrobiology in the Department of Space Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and is an adjunct professor of astrophysical and planetary science at the University of Colorado.
In 2006, he was the recipient of the American Astronomical Society’s Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communication of planetary science.
For more information about the free, public event, call Maggie Kaminski at 368.2242 or visit case.edu/humanities/.