Last night I went along to Monroe’s Rock Café in Reading with Dr Louisa Preston (Open University) to talk to a Café Scientifique group about ‘Life in the Cosmos’. The event was attended by 90 people and begun with us talking for around 30 minutes about our research. Louisa started off with how we search for, and understand, life in the Solar System. She then handed over to me to talk about how life might have been delivered to Earth on asteroids and comets. We then had a short break where we were able to speak to people about the meteorite samples we took along, including a piece of the Moon, Mars and a very heavy iron meteorite called Gibeon. Everyone was very excited about the samples and it was great to see people being so interested in holding a piece of Mars! We then fielded questions from the audience, having interesting debates as far-reaching as the evolution of life on Earth to the use of oxygen isotopes in the understanding of the Solar System.
All in all it was a really fun event and I’d happily do one again. Café Scientifique aims to bring science out to the wider public by removing the academic setting and having presentations in a bar or café. We weren’t allowed a slide show so just spoke freely about our work which was actually less scary than I’d imagined. I’d highly recommend finding a Café nearby to go along to, it’s a good way to spend an evening.