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SUMMARY:The Hycean Paradigm in the Search for Life Elsewhere - Speaker to 
 be confirmed
DTSTART:20231117T180000Z
DTEND:20231117T190000Z
UID:TALK208720@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:106940
DESCRIPTION:The search for life elsewhere is the holy grail of exoplanetar
 y science. The detection of atmospheric signatures of habitable Earth-like
  exoplanets is challenging due to their small planet-star size contrast an
 d thin atmospheres with high mean molecular weight. A new class of habitab
 le exoplanets\, called Hycean worlds\, promises to expand and accelerate t
 he search for planetary habitability and life elsewhere. Hycean planets ar
 e expected to be temperate ocean-covered worlds with H2-rich atmospheres. 
 Their large sizes and extended atmospheres\, compared to rocky planets of 
 the same mass\, make Hycean worlds significantly more accessible to atmosp
 heric spectroscopy. Several temperate Sub-Neptunes have been identified in
  recent studies as candidate Hycean worlds orbiting nearby M dwarfs that m
 ake them highly conducive for transmission spectroscopy with the James Web
 b Space Telescope (JWST). Recently\, we reported the first JWST spectrum o
 f a possible Hycean world\, K2-18 b\, with detections of multiple carbon-b
 earing molecules in its atmosphere. In this talk\, we will present observa
 tional constraints on the atmospheric composition of K2-18 b\, its atmosph
 eric temperature structure\, clouds/hazes\, chemical disequilibrium and th
 e possibility of a habitable ocean underneath the atmosphere. We will disc
 uss new observational and theoretical developments in the characterisation
  of candidate Hycean worlds\, and their potential for habitability.
LOCATION:MR2 in the CMS
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