Planetary Protection: Guardians of the Galaxy or lame science-party poopers?
Live event link: https://www.twitch.tv/sitp
We've teamed up with other Skeptics in the Pub groups around the country to organise regular talks online during the pandemic.
This event is produced in conjunction with the annual #EuropeanResearchersNight special event
Planetary Protection: Guardians of the Galaxy or lame science-party poopers? - Dr Jennifer Wadsworth
What is planetary protection? Is it even important? Because it sounds like it’s either an incredibly exciting space battle strategy from Independence Day or an exceedingly dull health and safety class that future generations will be subjected to. In reality, it’s kind of both (except that thankfully it’s not from Independence Day). I’m a space scientist who recently finished my postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California, where I spent my time developing new ideas to help in the often-overlooked field of planetary protection. I’ll (hopefully) convince you of its importance for our continued exploration of the solar system and how it can even be applied to help solve some of our problems here on Earth.
Jennifer Wadsworth is an astrobiologist who did her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and recently completed her postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California. She’s particularly interested in how microbes can survive extreme radiation environments ... or not, as the case may be! She enjoys long walks on the beach and subjecting bacteria to a plethora of lethal conditions. For science.
About Skeptics in the Pub - Online We are a coalition of UK-based Skeptics groups. Formed as the Covid-19 epidemic brought our country to a standstill, we are working to deliver high-quality online events focussing on Science, reason, and critical thinking.
New to Skeptics in the Pub or Twitch or both? We anticipate that Twitch or SitP may be new for some of you so we will have early doors at 6:45 to welcome new attendees and answer any questions you may have.
A useful guide to Twitch here: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-twitch-4143337
You don't need a Twitch account to watch the talk only if you want to take part in the chat.
You won't need an account to ask questions in the Q&A though.
More details on accessibility, inclusion and safety here: https://sitp.online/online-safety
Safety & Comfort
We aim to be an inclusive organisation, welcoming attendees from all backgrounds, ethnicities, and genders. The directors reserve the right to remove any attendee whose continued presence represents a real or perceived threat to the smooth running of our events, or the security and comfort of other attendees. Anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated.