NASA's 'Alien Life' Discussions Scheduled At Palm Desert UCR

PALM DESERT, CA — The search for alien life will be among the discussion topics of a four-part lecture series at UC Riverside's Palm Desert campus featuring speakers from NASA and UCR's Alternative Earths Astrobiology Center, it was announced Monday.

The series will kick off Jan. 21 with Edward Schwieterman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He will describe research that is narrowing down where environments suitable for life that is more complex than microorganisms may be able to exist beyond our own solar system.

On Feb. 25, Scott Sandford, senior laboratory astrophysicist at the NASA Ames Research Center, will share stories from his meteorite-hunting expeditions in Antarctica.

On March 24, Maryjo Brounce, an assistant professor of geology at UCR, will outline NASA's plan to put the first woman on the moon by 2024. She was also discuss her experiences thawing moon materials to do scientific analyses that were not possible when U.S. astronauts first landed on the moon.

On April 21, Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observations program manager at the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office in Washington, D.C., will explore NASA's work in identifying near-Earth objects.

All events begin at 6 p.m. in the auditorium at the UCR Palm Desert campus, 75080 Frank Sinatra Drive.

For more information, or to register to attend, visit https://palmdesert.ucr.edu/are-we-alone-lecture-series.