Professor Sun Kwok, Dean of Science and Chair Professor of Physics of The University of Hong Kong, was elected Vice President of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Bioastronomy Commission today during the General Assembly of the IAU. He will help the Union to organize world-wide research and education activities including conferences. “I am honored by the community's trust in me to take this new exciting discipline to a higher level. I will try to promote further international collaborations to achieve our science goal of understanding the origin of life,” said Professor Kwok. Bioastronomy is a subdiscipline of astronomy of high current interest, covering the subjects of origin of life on Earth and the search for evidence for extraterrestrial life.
Professor Kwok is widely acknowledged as the world-leading expert in the study of planetary nebulae, a class of spectacular-looking objects formed near the end of a star's life. His theory on the origin of planetary nebulae has revolutionarized our understanding of the death of Sun-like stars. More recently, he has found that planetary nebulae can rapidly synthesize large amount of complex organic compounds, as well as widely spreading them throughout the Milky Way Galaxy; a finding that has significant implications on the origin of life on Earth.
