Pondering Our Place in the Universe: Questions I Like Thinking About and Possibly a Few Answers
When
Where
Dr. Michael L. Wong
Research Associate
University of Washington
Pondering Our Place in the Universe: Questions I Like Thinking About and Possibly a Few Answers
I'll be speaking about a variety of astrobiological inquiries that pique my interest, from biosignature false positives to the origin of life, and how my intellectual journey so far has informed postulates about our place in the universe and strategies I wish to pursue to help answer the timeless question, "Are we alone?" Identifying abiotic production pathways for O2 is necessary before O2 can be used as a biosignature in exoplanetary contexts. I'll speak about how I'm using the photochemistry–transport model KINETICS to understand how the chemical cycles in Venus-like atmospheres respond to different stellar spectral energy distributions and result in different amounts of O2. I've also used KINETICS to evaluate the production of NOx species in Earth's early atmosphere. Such chemicals may have served as crucial high potential electron acceptors in a particular scenario for the emergence of life on Earth—a highly contentious topic. In order to help bridge the chasms of the origins-of-life field, I'll propose a new systems-level, process-based definition of life and introduce a new term, lyfe, to the scientific lexicon to describe the general class of living systems. Finally, I'll imagine what metabolisms hypothetical lyfe forms might utilize on highly reduced worlds.