Week 0: Alien, who?

Aliens are cool. You might’ve seen aliens on TV, with UFOs, stealing people and cows from Earth. But for now, IRL alien sightings are only a conspiracy. But can they exist? Can life as we know it exist elsewhere? Stay tuned to my blog to find out.

I wanted to search directly from the source—terrestrial, or rocky, exoplanets. For life as we know it to exist, the exoplanet must be home to liquid water. By observing terrestrial exoplanets that are similar to Earth, my senior research project aims to detect life’s necessary molecules on exoplanets to suggest the potential for extraterrestrial life.

But first—what does an exoplanet look like? This is easily answerable with a quick Google search… But as it turns out, these images are all artist renditions based on available data, much like images of dinosaurs. I’ll be generating software that reads General Circulation Model (GCM) files, which contain data on exoplanet atmospheres, to create 3D models and spectra of exoplanets. This is important work because current analyses of exoplanet-related research are based on 1D models, which do not contain information about the atmosphere, and are therefore less accurate than they could be.

I’m excited for the opportunity to tell you guys about my process, and I’m incredibly grateful to be working with Dr. Vincent Kofman all the way at NASA GSFC and Dr. Dixit, my physics teacher and mentor since the seventh grade.

Don’t let aliens catch you lackin’.

Tanvi Deshmukh