TSI Seminar

Michael L. Wong (Carnegie Science)

Jan 14, 2025 3:30 PM

Location: Bell Room (Rutherford 103)
TSI Seminar

Astrobiology seeks to answer the age-old questions "Are we alone?" and "Where did we come from?" To advance these queries, my research takes on a unique blend of planetary science, data science, and philosophy. This talk will cover four of my most exciting projects. First, I will explore how the topologies of atmospheric chemical reaction networks of Solar System bodies are distinct from one another, with potential applications to exoplanet biosignatures. Second, I will show how we can look for in-situ biosignatures by combining pyrolysis–GC–MS measurements of a wide variety of terrestrial and extraterrestrial carbonaceous materials with machine learning, achieving >90% accuracy in the differentiation between samples of abiotic origins vs. biotic specimens. Third, I will propose a new time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s). And finally, I will introduce four novel principles of "astrobioethics" that can serve to guide our future investigations of extraterrestrial environments.