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JPL and the Search for Life Beyond Earth
Broadcasting Live from “The Center of the Universe,” JPL Mission Control
Registration is limited to 1000 participants. Register early to reserve your spot.
Free livestream | Open to the public
In September 2025, a sample named Sapphire Canyon made headlines around the world. Drilled by the Perseverance rover from an ancient riverbed in Mars’s Jezero Crater, the sample carries the strongest potential sign of ancient life yet found on another planet. Whether its “leopard spot” mineral patterns were made by microbes or by ordinary chemistry is a question only a returned sample can settle. But the search has never been closer to an answer.
That search runs through JPL and Jonathan Lunine (MS ’83, PhD ’85) has dedicated his career to it.
Lunine earned both of his graduate degrees at Caltech before helping shape mission after mission across the solar system: Cassini at Saturn, Juno at Jupiter, and Europa Clipper, where he is a co-investigator on the spacecraft now flying toward one of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth. In 2024 he returned to Caltech as professor of planetary science and became chief scientist at JPL.
Join Lunine for a fireside chat with Sarah Al-Ahmed, host of The Planetary Society’s Planetary Radio, broadcast live from Caltech. Over 75 minutes, the two will walk through the missions defining the hunt for habitable worlds: Perseverance and the Sapphire Canyon sample, Curiosity’s organic molecules in Gale Crater, and Europa Clipper’s voyage to Jupiter’s ocean moon. Lunine will share mission imagery and video throughout, and the conversation closes with live questions from the audience.
Registration is now closed. If you have any questions or cannot find your confirmation email or link, please contact Kat Hantman at khantman@caltech.edu.
Jonathan Lunine
Jonathan Lunine comes to Caltech after serving on the faculties of Cornell University, University of Arizona, and University of Rome in Italy. Lunine, a Caltech alumnus, researches the formation and evolution of planetary systems, the nature of planetary interiors and atmospheres, and where environments suited for life might exist in the solar system and beyond. He was an interdisciplinary scientist on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and on the James Webb Space Telescope. He is co-investigator on the Juno mission at Jupiter. On the Europa Clipper mission, he is co-investigator for the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) and a member of the gravity science team. Lunine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Lunine received a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Rochester and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology.
Sarah Al-Ahmed
Host, Planetary Radio, The Planetary Society
Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in astrophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. After some time as a data-taker for a supernova research team using instruments at Lick Observatory in Mt. Hamilton, California, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in science communication. Sarah spent six years as a museum guide, writer, and show producer at the historic Griffith Observatory. In 2023, she became the host and producer of Planetary Radio, The Planetary Society’s weekly podcast and radio show.