Atmospheric Chemistry: Planets and Life Beyond Earth (FutureLearn)

You’ll also look into the factors needed to support life, explore the possibility of life beyond Earth and start the search for habitable planets. You’ll understand how atmospheric chemistry is communicated in the media and get a flavour of one of the most fascinating subjects explored during an undergraduate degree in Chemistry.

What topics will you cover?

• Planetary observation using active and passive space missions.
• How scientists analyse the composition of planetary atmospheres.
• How atmospheres are created and evolve.
• The factors needed to support life.
• The search for habitable planets outside our solar system.

Learning on this course
You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Explore the diversity of planetary atmospheres across the solar system.
• Investigate what scientific data on the composition of planetary atmospheres can be gathered from Earth and from space probes.
• Reflect on the search for habitable planets.
• Assess how the science of planetary atmospheres is presented in the media.

Who is the course for?
The course is for anyone with a general interest in atmospheric chemistry but it will be particularly useful for students at schools and colleges who want to study chemistry at university. The course is part of the Going to University collection and completing it can help improve your university application by broadening your chemistry knowledge and developing your independent learning skills. The course can also be used as a teachers’ classroom enrichment resource.