From Colorado to the Cosmos:
NASA’S Search for Life Outside the Solar System

By
Dr. Kevin France

The Estes Valley Astronomical Society is offering a free public open house and lecture on Saturday, August 29^th, starting at 7 pm at the Estes Park Memorial Observatory.  The goal of EVAS is to promote amateur astronomy and education in the Estes Valley

An illustration shows the Habitable Worlds Telescope in orbit around Earth with its starshade unfolded. (Image credit: NASA/Robert Lea)

In the last three decades, the explosion of exoplanet discoveries has demonstrated that, on average, every star in the Milky Way hosts a planetary system. With so many planets now discovered, our next challenge is characterizing the atmospheres of those planets to assess their potential habitability and search for the signs of active biology. In this talk, Dr. France will highlight recent exoplanet discoveries and describe the role that the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is playing in developing the science, hardware, and training the next generations of scientists and engineers for NASA’s upcoming flagship exoplanet mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Dr. France will describe the HWO mission and how the University of Colorado is developing hardware on small satellites and rocket missions, and how we use these missions to train the students who will lead NASA’s future missions like HWO and beyond.

Dr. Kevin France, University of Colorado Boulder.

Our guest speaker is Dr. Kevin France, a professor in the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. He is an expert on space instruments for astrophysics and the study of extrasolar planets. He has led approximately 10 NASA rocket and small-satellite missions at LASP, works extensively with the Hubble Space Telescope, and is engaged in NASA’s development of future observatories to find habitable planets beyond the solar system.

The observatory is just north of the high school at 1600 Manford Ave. Park in the teacher’s parking lot between the high school and the observatory. The doors will open at 7:00 pm, and the meeting will start at 7:30 pm.  The presentation, including a question-and-answer period, lasts about an hour. After the presentation, weather permitting, we will look through our 16-inch dome telescope at various celestial objects.