Blaauw Lezing 2025

Ieder jaar organiseert het Kapteyn Instituut de Blaauw lezing. Dit is een lezing voor een algemeen publiek die verzorgd wordt door een internationaal bekende astronoom. Het niveau is zodanig dat ook de geïnteresseerde leek het kan volgen.

In 2025 wordt de Blaauw lezing verzorgd door prof. dr. Laura Kreidberg van het Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Duitsland. De titel van de lezing is: “Copernicus revisited: is the Earth special?”

Copernicus Revisited: is the Earth special?

Nearly 500 years ago, Nicolas Copernicus published his disruptive theory that Earth is not the center of the universe. The idea that earth is not a particularly remarkable planet held fast for centuries. In the last two decades, a new test of this ‘Copernican Principle’ has emerged, resulting in the discovery of an abundance of planets orbiting other stars. These discoveries allow us to put Earth in context like never before. Thanks to the revolutionary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers are now able to study other Earth-sized planets in detail, particularly by searching for and characterizing their atmospheres.

During this year’s Blaauw Lecture, Laura Kreidberg will give a status report on JWST observations of rocky planets. She will cover the latest results for the iconic TRAPPIST-1 system, the study of the surface of the airless planet LHS 3844b, the search for atmospheres on lava worlds, and observations of planets in the radius valley, at the boundary of rocky and gaseous worlds. Taken together, these results provide a first glimpse of the building blocks available for the origin of life on terrestrial planets beyond the Solar System, offering essential context for understanding how special Earth really is.