Galactic Habitability Moiya McTier

Galactic habitability: Our Solar System lives in a pretty average part of the Milky Way — we aren’t moving too fast, there aren’t too many stars around us, and there are plenty of metals to use in the creation of life. But is it a coincidence that we’re here, or are there only a few special places in the galaxy where life could form and survive? The search for galactic habitability is the search for those places, and I’ll tell you what the search has turned up so far.

FIREBALL Balloon Mission Nicole Melso

Exomoons Alex Teachey

So far astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting stars outside our Solar System. But do those planets have moons? If so, what might they be like? And what can they tell us about the formation and evolution of planetary systems? These exomoons remain among the most elusive targets in observational astronomy, but we're hot on the trail. In this talk I will describe some of the techniques we use to search for these worlds, discuss what we can already conclude about them, and speculate on our prospects for finding them in the next few years.