Copernicus Revisited: Is the Earth special?

Nearly 500 years ago, Nicolas Copernicus published his disruptive theory that Earth is not the center of the universe. The idea that Earth is not a particularly remarkable planet held fast for centuries. In the last two decades, a new test of this ‘Copernican Principle’ has emerged, resulting in the discovery of an abundance of planets orbiting other stars. These discoveries allow us to put Earth in context like never before. Thanks to the revolutionary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers are now able to study other Earth-sized planets in detail, particularly by searching for and characterizing their atmospheres.

During this year’s Blaauw Lecture, Laura Kreidberg will give a status report on JWST observations of rocky planets. She will cover the latest results for the iconic TRAPPIST-1 system: the study of the surface of the airless planet LHS 3844b, the search for atmospheres on lava worlds, and observations of planets in the radius valley, at the boundary of rocky and gaseous worlds. Taken together, these results provide a first glimpse of the building blocks available for the origin of life on terrestrial planets beyond the Solar System. What can these results tell us about how special Earth really is?

Laura Kreidberg is an observational astronomer, exoplanet enthusiast, and director of the APEx Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research focuses primarily on atmosphere characterization of transiting exoplanets. She is interested in measuring the basic atmospheric properties of planets to learn how the observed diversity of exoplanets comes to be, how the Solar System fits into the broader context of planetary systems in the universe, and whether there are any other inhabited planets out there.

Blaauw Lecture
The Kapteyn Astronomical Institute organizes the yearly Blaauw lecture, in collaboration with Studium Generale. This is a lecture by an internationally renowned astronomer which everyone, including the general public, can attend. The Blaauw chair and Blaauw lecture were initiated in 1997 as one of six visiting professorships in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.