Wes Watters
Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and Associate Professor of Astronomy
Planetary scientist who studies impact cratering and landscape evolution, while teaching courses about the geology and climates of rocky and icy worlds.
Planetary scientist who studies impact cratering and landscape evolution, while teaching courses about the geology and climates of rocky and icy worlds. Prof. Watters is also engaged in search for technosignatures and with understanding the role of anomalies in the history of science.
Education
- B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Current and upcoming courses
Design your own planetary mission and build your own scientific probe in this project-based course about the practice of planetary exploration! Students will learn about the science and technology of exploring extreme environments through studying the development of a historical planetary mission and by building their own instrumented probe to investigate a challenging environment such as the Earth's lower atmosphere or the bottom of Lake Waban. Depending on their role in the project, students can gain experience with a wide range of new skills, such as how to assemble and test electronic circuits, computer programming, and data analysis.
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Life in the Universe
ASTR100
This course investigates the origin of life on the Earth and the prospects for finding life elsewhere in the cosmos, and begins with an overview of the Earth's place in the solar system and the universe. The course examines the early history of the Earth and the development of life, changes in the sun that affect the Earth, characteristics of the other objects in our solar system and their potential for supporting life, the detection of planets around stars other than the sun, and the search for extraterrestrial life. Our exploration of our place in the universe will include some nighttime observing at our on-campus observatory.