Lectures & Academic Salon

Jun

24

Venus is often called as the Earth’s twin sister as its diameter and mass are comparative to those of the Earth. Despite this similarity, however, the environment on Venus is quite different from what we have. The Venus atmosphere, consisting of ~96 % CO2, is so massive (~90 atm on its ground surface) that causes extremely strong greenhouse effect, resulting in ~730 K surface temperature. The planet is a slow rotator (~243 Earth Days for on revolution) but the atmosphere encircles the planet in ~4 Earth days, 60 times faster than the solid body’s rotation (both are in retrograde direction). This strange phenomenon was found in 1950’s and since then it has been the biggest mystery of Venus, called “super rotation”.

Jun

19

Humans have long speculated whether we are the only form of life in the Universe. We are likely the generation that will witness the detection of first extraterrestrial biosignatures, either on planets or moons in our own Solar System, or on a remote planet around one of our neighboring stars. I will introduce astronomers’ efforts in pursuits of finding Earth 2.0, earth-like planets around Sun-like stars, with the hope to find life in the form that we are familiar with some day, ideally within our lifetime.