Vincent Kofman (Oslo): The search for habitable planets: Using Earth as a blueprint

Thursday 15 Oct 2026, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

Title: The search for habitable planets: Using Earth as a blueprint 
Speaker: Vincent Kofman 
Affiliation: Centre for Planetary Habitability in Oslo 
Room: IRF project room (house 8) 
Time: 14:00-15:00 

Abstract:
The search for habitability beyond the Earth has gained substantial momentum with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets. A very small subset, one that is particularly hard to observe, could be considered habitable. Future telescopes may be able to observe Earth-like planets directly, but what will they be able to constrain about the planets?
In this talk, I will go over the challenges of studying the atmospheres of exoplanets, the tools we use, and how the Earth is a critical blueprint for exoplanet atmospheres.

 

Speaker:
Vincent Kofman is a researcher at the Centre for Planetary Habitability in Oslo. He is a planetary scientist specialized in remote observations and spectroscopy. After obtaining his masters’ degree from the University of Utrecht, his PhD work brought him to Leiden, where he investigated the photochemistry and spectroscopy of cryogenic water ice. In 2018 he moved to the Unites States and worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to work with the team developing the Planetary Spectrum Generator.