Super-Earths and Life

Are we alone in this universe? What new information and observations on exoplanets have we discovered?

In the past decade, astronomers have made incredible advances in the discovery of planets outside our solar system. Thirty years ago, we knew only of the planets in our own solar system. Now we know of thousands circling nearby stars.

Super-Earths and Life is a course about life on Earth, alien life, how we search for life outside of Earth, and what this teaches us about our place in the universe.

Meanwhile, biologists have gained a strong understanding of how life evolved on our own planet, all the way back to the earliest cells. We can describe how simple molecules can assemble themselves into the building blocks of life, and how those building blocks might have become the cells that make up our bodies today.

Super-Earths and Life is all about how these fields, astronomy and biology, together with geology, can help answer one of our most powerful and primal questions: are we alone?

This course consists of seven modules, which investigate questions like:

• What is life? How did it arise? How does it change over time?
• What is a planet?
• How do we find and learn about planets outside our solar system?
• How has the Earth changed over time? What do these changes mean for the evolution and survival of living things?
• How do geological processes shape planets? How do these processes contribute to life?
• How many habitable planets are there?
• How can we search for life?