Upcoming Lectures

The Hycean Paradigm in the Search for Life Elsewhere

Professor Nikku Madhusudhan, University of Cambridge

Nikku Madhusudhan is a Professor of Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. His research spans various aspects of extrasolar planets. He is credited with pioneering atmospheric retrieval methods for determining the atmospheric properties of exoplanets using spectroscopic observations, besides other important developments in the understanding of the atmospheres, interiors, formation conditions, and habitability of exoplanets. Most recently, his work led to the identification of a new type of habitable planet, called Hycean worlds, and to the first detection of carbon-bearing molecules in a habitable-zone exoplanet which could be a Hycean world.