The Kaiser Spring Lectures 2025 - Astrobiology

To attend the lecture, be sure to get your ticket here!

Each year, the Kaiser Spring Lectures take place at the Old Observatory in Leiden. The lectures are aimed at the general public. This year the theme of the lectures is "Cosmic Connections: Bridging the Sciences of the Universe".

The second lecture in the series is titled "Planetary exploration and the search for life in our Solar System".

Astrobiology bridges space and Earth sciences to explore the origins and evolution of life in our Solar System and beyond. Ongoing robotic missions target planets and moons to assess their habitability and search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Mars, once potentially habitable, remains a key focus, though its harsh environment challenges the preservation of organic material. Insights from extremophiles on Earth have reshaped our understanding of habitability, driving future missions to Mars and icy moons like Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, which may harbor subsurface oceans. Exploratory missions to comets and asteroids, particularly those investigating their organic content, offer significant potential for understanding the prebiotic reserves accessible to early Earth and Mars. Laboratory, field, and space simulations are essential for refining life detection strategies and developing exploration technologies.
Never before have so many space missions been dedicated to exploring our Solar System. This lecture will present recent mission discoveries and the scientific foundation for future robotic and human exploration in the search for life.