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The Search for Life Beyond Earth: A Special Live NASA Event

We’ve discovered thousands of worlds orbiting around other stars, called exoplanets, including many that are similar in size to Earth.  But how do we know if some of these worlds might support life?
 

kids playing in a field looking at a distant galaxy
Artist’s concept: The search for life beyond our solar system requires unprecedented cooperation across scientific disciplines. NASA’s NExSS collaboration includes those who study Earth as a life-bearing planet (lower right), those researching the diversity of solar system planets (left), and those on the new frontier, discovering worlds orbiting other stars in the galaxy (upper right).
NASA

NASA has formed a community of scientists to apply what we’ve learned from our home planet to better understand the habitability of worlds beyond our solar system. On Friday, Nov. 17 from 1-2 PM ET, they’ll provide an update and overview of their efforts during a livestream event, “Next Steps in the Search for Habitable Worlds,” from the Habitable Worlds workshop in Laramie, Wyoming.  
 
The one-hour interactive discussion will cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, encompassing much of the broad research topics supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Five researchers will address topics that include:
• What makes a planet habitable? What does “habitability” mean when it comes to exoplanets?
• How does a star impact a planet’s habitability? 
• Why do we focus on Earth-like planets? Could life appear on much stranger worlds than ours and, if so, could we recognize it? 
• How can we confirm that a planet around another star is habitable? And how might we find life on such a world?
• How does our observations and understanding of Earth inform our search for life on planets around other stars?
 
The live event can be accessed at: 

NASA TV Live

The public may submit questions before and during the live event on Twitter using #AskNASA.