I am honored to be elected a 2023 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, in recognition of my “distinguished contributions to the field of astrobiology and astrophysics, particularly for advancements in understanding of habitable exoplanets and planetary systems.” The prestigious AAAS Fellows program is over 150…
All posts by Daniel Apai
About Daniel Apai
Bolder than Webb?
January 2024: “Bolder than Webb?” Former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin’s OpEd in Aerospace America makes a strong statement on the importance of inspiring, bold visions for next-generation NASA missions. Goldin argues that the current path will lead to a decade(s)-long gap in major improvements of space telescope capabilities, which poses a substantial risk for American leadership in space…
New Conversation article on Nautilus Space Observatory
We are making exciting progress on the world’s largest multi-order diffractive lens, a new technology to transform how we are designing and building space telescopes. Read about our project in my new article in The Conversation! Check out the project website to learn more about the Nautilus Space Observatory!
Pandora Science Team at Biosphere 2
Exciting two days at Biosphere 2! We just wrapped up our first in-person the Pandora Science Team meeting. Pandora is a NASA-funded space telescope, part of the new NASA Pioneers space telescope program. This is a very exciting program: NASA challenged teams to build space telescopes that do cutting edge science – but to do this…
Crotts Radical Hypothesis Lecture 2022
During an exciting visit to Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy, I have the opportunity to deliver the 2022 Crotts Radical Hypothesis Lecture. The lectures honor the memory of Arlin Crotts, a brilliant and visionary astrophysicists, whose work and discoveries profoundly influenced many fields of modern astrophysics: From dark matter haloes through light echoes to the…
JWST Opens a New Era: The Search for Atmospheric Biosignatures
Amazing new data from JWST shows its capability to analyze the compositions of exoplanet atmospheres. Will it find life?
Atmospherica featured in UA News
An excellent article by Mikayla Mace Kelley from UA News on our team’s work on using a scalable biotechnology solution to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide. Read about how we combine astrobiology, biosystems engineering, and ecology for a novel approach to mitigating a global challenge. Small but mighty: How UArizona professors are harnessing the power of…
Alien Earths : An Origins Seminar
With Alien Earths in full swing, I had the opportunity to present an overview and some exciting early results at the Origins Seminar series. Great turnout and fun questions!
Nautilus Space Observatory Featured in Sky & Telescope
We were excited to see that the 80th anniversary special issue of Sky & Telescope on the “Future of Astronomy” prominently features our Nautilus Space Observatory concept in a 2-page in-depth report!
Alien Civilizations with the Nautilus Space Observatory
The next generations of space telescopes will bring about orders-of-magnitude increases in our observing capabilities. Many of these aim to search for atmospheric signatures of life, that would most likely emerge from the largest biomass on the planets – most likely microbial life. However, excitingly, the powerful telescopes of the future could also help us look…