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Book of the Week: Episode 3 - Revelations from the tiny tardigrade

Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger on what the tiny space-travelling tardigrade can tell us about surviving on other worlds. Pippa Nixon reads.

Lisa Kaltenegger, the astronomer and world-leading expert in the search for life on faraway worlds takes us on a mind-bending journey through the cosmos, asking, are we alone? Pippa Nixon reads.

Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger's eye-opening guide to the cosmos uses Earth's diverse biosphere as a template to search for life on other planets beyond our galaxy. Working with a team of tenacious scientists from a variety of disciplines she has come up with an ingenious toolkit to identify possible life forms on planets far from Earth. Her enthusiasm and her expertise in the newest technological advances reveal the possibilities for whole new worlds. Perhaps, she muses aliens might be out there gazing back at us.

Lisa Kaltenegger is the Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell University. She is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modelling potential habitable worlds . She is a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS mission and the NIRISS instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. The recipient of numerous international prizes and awards, including a European Commission Role Model for Women of Science and Research, she was named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine. Asteroid Kaltenegger7734 is named after her.

Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard

14 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Wed 1 May 2024 11:45
  • Thu 2 May 2024 00:30