Blaauw Lecture: Copernicus revisited, is the Earth special? (Groningen, in English)

In this Blaauw Lecture, astronomer Laura Kreidberg will talk about the observations of rocky planets with the James Webb Space Telescope. These results provide a glimpse of the building blocks available for the origin of life on exoplanets. What can this tell us about how special Earth really is?

Nearly 500 years ago, Nicolas Copernicus published his disruptive theory that Earth is not the center of the universe. In the last two decades, a new test of this ‘Copernican Principle’ has emerged, resulting in the discovery of an abundance of planets orbiting other stars. Thanks to the revolutionary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers are now able to study other Earth-sized planets in detail, particularly by searching for and characterizing their atmospheres.

During this year’s Blaauw Lecture, Laura Kreidberg will give a status report on JWST observations of rocky planets. She will cover the latest results for the iconic TRAPPIST-1 system, the study of the surface of the airless planet LHS 3844b, the search for atmospheres on lava worlds, and observations of planets in the radius valley, at the boundary of rocky and gaseous worlds. These results provide a first glimpse of the building blocks available for the origin of life on terrestrial planets beyond the Solar System.

Laura Kreidberg is an observational astronomer, exoplanet enthusiast, and director of the APEx Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research focuses primarily on atmosphere characterization of transiting exoplanets.

Blaauw Lecture: Copernicus revisited, is the Earth special?
woensdag 3 december 2025, 20.00 tot 21.30 uur
Studium Generale Groningen
Academy Building, Broerstraat 5, 9712 CP Groningen
Free entrance (ticket required)
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