Clara Sousa-Silva, a quantum astrochemist, is working on finding clues to distant objects and alien worlds. However, she clarifies that she's not hunting extraterrestrials.
Astrochemist on Finding Aliens
Sousa-Silva doesn't deny that she's looking for aliens but not hunting them. The scientist noted that it's "very distasteful" to think she's hunting them because she had already let go of the idea that she has to go somewhere to know something or touch it to know it's real.
Instead, she talks about biosignatures. According to her, a quantum level governs how molecules act and interact with light. To understand space, she uses the quantum behavior of molecules or chemistry.
Despite taking place on extremely small scales, these quantum interactions are visible in the spectrum of starlight, which is a graph of intensity at various wavelengths. Scientists can analyze spectra like a molecular bar code to identify the molecules that light encountered before it reached Earth. According to astronomer Adam Burgasser of the University of California, San Diego, each molecule contributes to the bar code, but scientists only have a basic understanding of the contributions made by a select group of common molecules. He claims that understanding how a molecule interacts with light is an intricate computational task. Just studying one of these takes up a whole graduate thesis.
Sousa-Silva mentioned the expectations that "if we find aliens, well know - well be so sure." The expert seemingly disagreed, noting that such expectation "is so deeply unlikely." She added that we are "so unprepared to communicate that."
She added that as a woman in science, she felt she couldn't afford to lose respectability. However, while alien hunting is off the table, she's interested in ghost-busting.
Who Is Clara Sousa-Silva?
Clara Sousa-Silva is interested in the molecular characterization of extra-solar planets. She wants to make science an inclusive world as a quantum astrochemist and science communicator. She hopes to detect a habitable planet using spectroscopy and works on it most of her time.
Sousa-Silva did her Ph.D. with an Exomol project, where she stimulated spectra for phosphine. She was a postdoctoral associate at MIT for three years, working on the spectroscopy of biosignature gasses, particularly phosphine.
In London, she was the Educational Coordinator for the Twinkle Space Mission, which includes ORBYTS (Original Research By Young Twinkle Students). She became a 51 Pegasi b Fellow at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a Bard College professor.
Mentorship also occupies a significant space in Sousa-Silva's busy schedule. She is the current director of the Harvard-MIT Science Research Mentoring Program and the JURA program, where she helps kids perform astrophysics research.
Sousa-Silva empowers her students to take the lead, mentor one another, and continue the multi-generational mission of filling in the "missing spectra" in her lab. She sees her students leading more and more research.
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