Is there life beyond earth? - with Nikku Madhusudhan

Could there be alien life out there? Explore new exoplanets, JWST discoveries, and the future of finding life beyond Earth.

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This lecture was recorded at the Ri on 27 October 2025.

Are we alone in the universe? This is one of the oldest and most primal questions of humankind.

But we may be closer to finding an answer, thanks to a recently-proposed new class of habitable exoplanets called Hycean worlds. Hycean planets are expected to be temperate ocean-covered worlds with H2-rich atmospheres, and thanks to their larger sizes and more extended atmospheres, compared to rocky planets of similar mass, Hycean worlds are significantly more accessible to atmospheric spectroscopy. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently observed the atmospheric spectrum of a possible Hycean world for the first time, named K2-18 b, which led to inferences of multiple carbon-bearing molecules in its atmosphere with hints of a potential biomarker.

Astrophysicist and exoplanet expert Nikku Madhusudhan will present the observations from K2-18b, and what they’ve taught us about the atmospheric composition and physical processes, along with the possibility of a habitable ocean underneath the atmosphere. Discover the latest future prospects in the search for habitable environments, and life beyond the solar system in the next decade.

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Nikku Madhusudhan is a Professor of Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. He is credited with pioneering atmospheric retrieval methods for determining the atmospheric properties of exoplanets using spectroscopic observations with large telescopes, besides other important developments in the understanding of the atmospheres, interiors, formation conditions, and habitability of exoplanets.

Most recently, his work led to the identification of a new class of habitable planets, called hycean worlds, and to the first detections of carbon-bearing molecules in a possible hycean world using the James Webb Space Telescope. He is a recipient of several awards and honours including the Young Scientist Medal in Astrophysics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the MERAC Prize in Theoretical Astrophysics from the European Astronomical Society and the Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching at Cambridge.
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