Ingredients for life on Titan with Sarah Hörst

The Institute for Research on Exoplanets was pleased to welcome Sarah Hörst on October 16th for the  Grande conférence de l’iREx 2019. During the evening, over 150 people were able to travel to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, during a presentation entitled “Titan: Ingredients for Life”.

Sarah Hörst, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University, is a specialist in the formation and composition of planetary atmospheres. She received her PhD in 2011 from the University of Arizona where she studied chemical processes in Titan’s atmosphere. Dr. Hörst is part of the scientific team of the Dragonfly mission, newly selected by NASA, which will explore the surface of Titan. Our institute had the pleasure of welcoming Sarah Hörst for a few days in mid-October 2019 as our speaker for the Grande conférence de l’iREx 2019.

Over 150 people attended the iREx Grande Conférence on the evening of Wednesday October 16th, where Hörst discussed Titan’s importance in the history of the search for life. The Dragonly mission was highlighted as it will allow a rotorcraft to descend onto Titan’s surface to collect and analyse samples in the hope of finding life. The iREx team was honoured to be able to host an event that attracted a large number of people, and they warmly thank Sarah Hörst for her dynamic and exciting presentation. We hope to see her again, when Dragonfly has landed on Titan!

The Grande conférence de l’iREx public talks bring one world-class researcher in the field of astrophysics to Montréal to interact with iREx members and showcase both their science and their story to the general public every year. Previous speakers have included Michaël Gillon (Institut STAR),  David Charbonneau (Harvard) and Vicky Meadows (U of Washington).