Astrobiologist Sukrit Ranjan discusses the potential importance of UV radiation as a trigger for the emergence of life, and whether red dwarf stars might provide the necessary UV spark to generate life on optimal exoplanets.
Sukrit Ranjan is a Simons Collaboration on the Origin of Life (SCOL) postdoctoral fellow in the Dept of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics at Harvard University, where he was the first student to earn a certificate in Origin of Life studies.