Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique is definitely roaming around. This time Yagger’s Downtown (433 W. Pender) is hosting the upcoming July 2016 Café Scientifique talk. From the July 18, 2016 notice received via email,
Our next café will happen on Tuesday July 26th [2016], 7:30pm in the back room at Yagger’s Downtown (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Jaymie Matthews, a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UBC. The title of his talk is:
GOLDILOCKS AND THE 3000+ WORLDS:
Searching for planets that are “just right”A little more than two decades ago, we knew of only a handful of planets, those in our own Solar System. As of 14 July 2016, there are about 3400 confirmed exoplanets and thousands more strong candidates. We live in a revolutionary era for the understanding of the origin and evolution of planets, including our own Earth.
The statistical evidence is mounting that planets are commonplace in the Galaxy. What about life on those planets? Life on this planet depends on building blocks of complex carbon molecules and the transport medium of liquid water. Carbon and water molecules are found in interstellar clouds. What about liquid water oceans on alien worlds?
The first step in finding possible abodes for life is to find planets in the Habitable Zones of their stars, whose surface temperatures would allow liquid water. “Goldilocks worlds” – not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life as we know it.
I’ll give you an update on our census of exoplanets, and the surprises so far. How many of these are Goldilocks worlds, and what will be the next steps to see if they indeed have oceans and life?
Although there’s one Goldilocks world in our own Solar System, Earth, many are excited by the prospect of microbial life on Mars. I’ll tell you why I’d bet on life being found first not on the dusty surface of the planet Mars, but beneath the icy surface of one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa. Goldilocks worlds must make room for Deep Habitats in our search for extraterrestrial life.
Here’s a bit more information about Dr. Jaymie Matthews (from the biography attached to the July 18, 2016 Café Scientifique notice),
Jaymie Matthews is an astrophysical “gossip columnist” who unveils the hidden lifestyles of stars. Professor Matthews is also an “astro-paparazzo” who spies on planets around other stars that might be homes for alien celebrities. Maybe not Vulcans, but the discovery of microbes on another world would make them newsmakers of the century.
Matthews is a Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia [UBC]. He leads the MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of STars) mission – Canada’s first space telescope – and is an expert in the fields of stellar seismology (using the vibrations of vibrating stars to probe their hidden interiors and histories) and exoplanets. He received his B.Sc. degree at the University of Toronto, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Western Ontario.
In 2006, Prof. Matthews was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2012, he received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Prof. Matthews is a member of the Executive Council for NASA’s Kepler mission hunting for Earth-sized exoplanets in the Habitable Zones of their stars. He’s on the Science Team for BRITE Constellation (BRIght Target Explorer) – a Canadian–Austrian–Polish satellite mission to monitor the brightest stars in the night sky. Matthews was elected Vice-President of IAU (International Astronomical Union) Commission G4 on Pulsating Stars in 2015. He is an Associate Editor of the astronomy journal Frontiers, and has co-authored more than 200 refereed scientific papers.
Matthews served on the Boards of Directors of Vancouver’s H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and Youth Science Canada, receiving the Canada-Wide Science Fair Alumni Award in 2015. He holds a 1999 Killam Prize for teaching excellence in the UBC Faculty of Science, and the 2002 Teaching Prize of the Canadian Association of Physicists. Matthews is a co-founder of and instructor for UBC’s Science 101 course for disadvantaged residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He was a “Human Library Book” in Surrey, BC where “readers” could reserve him to ask about science or life, and a storyteller at the Kootenay Storytelling Festival in Nelson, BC. Matthews was featured in the Discovery Channel series “Light: More Than Meets The Eye”, and the documentary “LUNARCY!” He’s a producer and writer for Knowledge (BC’s educational TV network) of Space Suite – a series of astronomy/space ‘music videos’. Matthews was awarded the Canadian Astronomical Society’s Qilak Award for education and outreach in 2016. Qilak is an Inuit word for the “canopy of the heavens” or the sky overhead.
You can find out more about Yagger’s Downtown here.