‘Origin of life: from astrophysics to philosophy’, a colloquium presented at ACFAS 2023

As part of the 90th ACFAS Congress, several members of Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec (CRAQ) took part in a colloquium entitled “Origin of life: from astrophysics to philosophy”.

The symposium opened with a much-appreciated talk by René Doyon, professor at the Université de Montréal and regular member of the CRAQ, on the many results of the James Webb space telescope. Étienne Artigau, researcher at the Institut Trottier de recherche sur les exoplanètes and collaborating member of the CRAQ, then spoke about the search for terrestrial planets in the immediate vicinity of the Sun using the NIRPS spectrograph, and Alexandre Champagne-Ruel, student at the Université de Montréal and student member of the CRAQ, presented some methods for investigating the origins of life inspired by information theory.

Other presentations followed, notably by Paul François, researcher in biophysics at the Université de Montréal, and Frédéric Bouchard and Christophe Malaterre, researchers in the philosophy of biology at the Université de Montréal and UQAM respectively. Two bachelor’s students in physics-Sascha Zakaib-Bernier and Antoine Demers-Bergeron-also presented posters on modeling the formation of spatial structures and the emergence of cooperative behaviors using informational networks, work carried out under the direction of Paul Charbonneau, professor at Université de Montréal and regular member of the CRAQ.

The symposium also brought together researchers from the Origins Institute at McMaster University, Université Laval, Université de Strasbourg and Grenoble-Alpes, and was featured in Le Devoir newspaper.

Media contact

Frédérique Baron
Media Relations
Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec
frederique.baron@umontreal.ca