Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb: Beyond Earth 2.0 - Charting Paths to Habitable Worlds with JWST

Описание: WSU Physics Colloquium: 4 December 2025

Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb: Beyond Earth 2.0 - Charting Paths to Habitable Worlds with JWST

The quest to understand whether planets beyond our Solar System could harbor life is a driving force in exoplanet science. Two principal types of exoplanets stand out as promising candidates for habitability. Temperate rocky worlds offer an exciting perspective as potential “Earth 2.0”s, but confident atmosphere detections on these planets still remain elusive. On the other hand, cool members of the “sub-Neptune” population — small planets distinct from Earth-like compositions, the most common in exoplanetary systems — may also harbor liquid water oceans albeit in exotic environments. In this talk, I will discuss recent advances in probing exoplanetary habitability, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach that considers a planet’s internal makeup, its stellar environment, and the importance of 3D climate calculations to interpret observations. I will highlight recent JWST observations of TRAPPIST-1 d, a small temperate rocky planet, and share findings from JWST observations and novel modeling of small sub-Neptunes — results that prompt paradigm shifts in our understanding of the processes shaping these worlds.