Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy

Planetarium proudly presents Dr. Arik Kershenbaum for a lecture on his book “The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy / What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves”.

Astrobiologist’s mostly talk about microbiological life, especially when discussing life on planets in our solar system, but Kershenbaum is interested in more complex life – animals like us. What will they look like?

He fiercely jumps over the speculations and equations on the possibilities of life other places in the universe and through the toolbox of evolutionary biology investigates what animals would look like, how they will communicate and so on, depending on the world they inhabit.

This evening Kershenbaum will enlighten us on both how alien life will look like and why life on Earth look, talk, and walk like it does. What kind of conditions form life and the way it is liven? And what happens to animals if we imagine other conditions on other worlds, far far away?

What if gravity was different? Would life evolve differently on a planet with two Suns? How does the thickness and composition of the atmosphere come into play?
Could alien lifeforms be truly alien, or might they resemble life as we know it on planet Earth?
This evening you might get the answer.

Before Dr. Arik Kershenbaum’s lecture, we will screen “The Story of Earth”, a wonderful movie about how life on Earth started on a toxic planet and evolved into the diversity we see and cherish today.

About Dr. Arik Kershenbaum

Arik Kershenbaum is a College Lecturer and Director of Studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and a member of the Department of Zoology.
He received his PhD from the University of Haifa in Israel and holds a Higher Doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

In 2020 he published the book “Zoologist Guide to the Galaxy” in which he uses evolutionary principles to discuss how aliens would look, walk, and talk.