May Meeting – Dr Charley Lineweaver on Cosmobiology: recent progress in cosmology, exoplanetology and biology

Our meetings include brief business, a main presentation and items of astronomical news or activities from members.

The May Main Item will be the Arthur Page Memorial Lecture presented by Dr Charles H. Lineweaver, Research School of Astronomy and
Astrophysics, ANU.  His talk is titled Cosmobiology: recent progress in cosmology, exoplanetology and biology  A synopsis is below.

The May 2025 meeting is planned to be a face-to-face meeting; attendees can also join in online via Zoom. Details emailed to members. Guests/visitors can contact us for Zoom details at .
Visitors are welcome to join our face-to-face or online meetings.

Synopsis of the Main Item talk: I will combine recent progress in cosmology, exoplanetology and biology into a new more coherent story that tries to explain how we got here and answer the question “Are we alone?” This progress includes 1) the large variety and near ubiquity of planets around other stars and 2) phylogenetic trees that tell us more about when and how life got started on Earth. This progress is also giving us better answers to the question: What can life on Earth tell us about life elsewhere in the universe? Speculative, rational, but unpopular answers to the Fermi paradox (Where is everybody?) will also be advanced.