Lava Worlds: From Early Earth to Exoplanets

Name: Lava Worlds: From Early Earth to Exoplanets
Start: 2025-09-11T15:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-09-11T16:00:00+02:00
Location: UiO : Realfagsbiblioteket

Schedule

Thu Sep 11 2025 at 03:00 pm to 04:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

UiO : Realfagsbiblioteket | Oslo, OS

Welcome to a new Kepler Seminar. This time Professor Eric Gaidos from the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa will give an exiting talk.
Although a major motivation for observing rocky planets around other stars is to find and study other temperate and potentially habitable planets like Earth, the most readily studied objects are much closer to their star, and much hotter, in some cases hot enough that silicate melts (magmas) are stable at or near the surface. Presently, no body in the Solar System is such a "lava world" (Io may come close) but magma oceans were probably present during the early histories of all the rocky planets, including Earth, a phase that may have determined the planets subsequent evolution.
By studying lava worlds around other stars, we can gain insight into the factors that influence the structure, magnetic fields, atmospheres, climates, and potential habitability of other Earth-like planets. Gaidos will provide an overview of magma ocean fundamentals and the evidence for these states in the early Solar System. He then describe how ground-based telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and JWST will be revealing much more about lava worlds in the near future.
The event is open to all.
The event will be streamed to Ralfagsbibliotekets YouTube-channel.
Organised by
Centre for Planetary Habitability (PHAB) and The Science Library, UiO.