Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
ORONO, Maine — Wendy Hagen Bauer, an astronomer at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, will give a free public presentation at the University of Maine on January 27. Her presentation is titled The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and will be given in room 101, Neville Hall at 7 p.m.
A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and the University of Hawaii, Hagen Bauer studies the process of mass loss from stars in the late stages of their lives. Her talk will summarize several issues in the search for life in other parts of the universe:
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why we think extraterrestrial life is likely to be carbon-based and require liquid water;
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which types of stars would be likely, or not likely, to harbor intelligent life;
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where in our own solar system we might expect to find liquid water (including information we have learned from the Mars Exploration Rovers)
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how we are detecting planets around other stars and how we will attempt to find earth-sized planets in the future;
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how we are searching for radio signals from intelligent life.
In addition to the public lecture, Hagen Bauer will give the weekly physics colloquium at 3:10 p.m. Jan. 28 in Room 140, Bennett Hall, and speak in several UMaine classes.
In her own research, Hagen Bauer is currently investigating the binary star system VV Cephei, in which a mass-losing supergiant star is orbited by a smaller, hotter companion. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, the American Association of Variable Star Observers, the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Council on Undergraduate Research, and the International Astronomical Union.
The presentation is part of a series of public events sponsored by The Shapley Visiting Lectureships program of the American Astronomical Society and by the UMaine Dept. of Physics and Astronomy in celebration of the Albert Einstein centennial year and the World Year of Physics.