Tuesday, March 17, 2026 | 7:00pm PT
Are We Alone in the Universe?
Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, PhD
Registration Now Open
Attendance is Complimentary. Registration is Required.
Are we alone in the universe?
For most of human history, that question lived in myth and imagination. Today, it lives in scientific inquiry.
In this Spark Salon, astrophysicist and astrobiologist Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute and author of Alien Earths, takes us into the search for worlds beyond our own. As scientists explore distant planets orbiting other stars, they are not just gathering data; they are interpreting it.
What counts as life?
What makes a world “habitable”?
How do we recognize something we’ve never seen before?
The search for life beyond Earth is ultimately a search for meaning. It forces us to examine the assumptions we carry about what is normal, possible, and real.
As our view of the cosmos expands, so does our perspective on ourselves. Looking outward into the vastness of space, we may discover something equally profound about how we construct our understanding of life here at home.
6:00 p.m.: Doors open, reception
7:00 p.m.: Program begins promptly
8:00 p.m.: Book signing and reception
In-person attendees will receive a complimentary book.
Bio
Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger is the Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute and Professor of Astronomy at Cornell. She is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling potential habitable worlds and their detectable spectral fingerprint. Kaltenegger served on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC) and on NASA senior review of operating missions. She is a Science Team Member on NASA's TESS Mission and the NIRISS instrument on James Webb Space Telescope. Kaltenegger was named one of America’s Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine and an Innovator to Watch by TIME. She appears in the IMAX 3D movie The Search for Life in Space and speaks frequently, including at Aspen Ideas Festival, TEDYouth, the World Science Festival, and the Kavli Foundation Lecture Series at the Adler Planetarium, which was live-streamed to six continents.
Alien Earths: The New Science for Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
Now available at: