This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

What is planetary protection? Is it even important? Because it sounds like it’s either an incredibly exciting space battle strategy from Independence Day or an exceedingly dull health and safety class that future generations will be subjected to. In reality it’s a kind of bacterial Prime Directive. Jennifer Wadsworth is a space scientist who recently finished her postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California, where she spent her time developing new ideas to help in the often-overlooked field of planetary protection. She’ll (hopefully) convince you of its importance for our continued exploration of the solar system and how it can even be applied to help solve some of our problems here on Earth.

Jennifer Wadsworth is an astrobiologist who did her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and recently completed her postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California. She’s particularly interested in how microbes can survive extreme radiation environments … or not, as the case may be! She enjoys long walks on the beach, and subjecting bacteria to a plethora of lethal conditions. For science.

This event is being run by Skeptics in the Pub Online, a coalition of UK-based Skeptics groups. Formed as the Covid-19 epidemic brought our country to a standstill, we are working to deliver high quality online events focussing on science, reason, and critical thinking.