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February 14 at 4PM in the 2nd Floor Conference Room in Dearborn Speaker: Diana Valencia (Harvard) “Super-Earths: one step closer to finding habitable planets” The field of exoplanets is advancing at a fast pace and super-Earths, planets with masses between 1 and 10 earth-masses, are the newest and most interesting exoplanets found to date. Although bigger than Earth, they are easier to discover than a true Earth analog and with new planet-finding missions underway, we expect to find dozens and maybe even hundreds in the next five years. Will the expected data from these missions help us answer the exciting question of whether habitable planets exist outside the Solar system? I will address two important issues about super-Earths that are pertinent to this question of habitability: 1) planetary type and 2) thermal state. Following the roadmap of NASA, it is fruitful to look for habitable conditions in planets that are similar to Earth. We have built a framework that helps infer the composition of a planet from a mass and radius measurement. We will use this framework to determine if discovered super-earths are rocky or ocean-like, with rocky planets being potentially more habitable. More importantly, habitability is determined by the planet's thermal evolution. I will discuss how important the early stages of evolution might be to the production of a habitable planet and also the likelihood of super-Earths exhibiting plate tectonics, a potential life-promoting mechanism. |