Into Deep Space: The Search for Planets – 6pm, Wednesday 10th October 2012

Are we alone in the Universe or is their life on other planets? To answer this question we first need to find planets beyond our own Solar system. Dr Ken Rice, from the University of Edinburgh discussed how new planets are formed and discovered by ‘planet-hunters’.

Not all planets will support life and Ken explained how likely it was to find habitable planets and what the chances were of contacting intelligent life on another planet.

This event included the first screening in Dundee of the short-film ‘Wish you were here? The search for exoplanets’, produced by the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh and based on Scottish research. The film develops our understanding of how and where we might expect to see life appearing in the Galaxy.