20: Searching for Signs of Life in the Universe

A Conversation with Astrobiologist Dr. Nathalie Cabrol. With more than 300 million exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and up to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe - to think we are alone or the only advanced intelligent civilization is pretty close to nonsense. Dr. Nathalie Cabrol is a French American Astrobiologist specializing in planetary science. Cabrol studies ancient lakes on Mars, and undertakes high-altitude scientific expeditions in the Central Andes of Chile as the principal investigator of the  "High Lakes Project"  funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute. There, with her team, she documents life's adaptation to extreme environments, the effect of rapid climate change on lake ecosystems and habitats, its geobiological signatures, and relevance to planetary exploration. Cabrol was appointed in 2015 to head the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.