Applications are now being accepted for the 20th Josep Comas i Solà International Astrobiology Summer School, which is co-organized by the NASA Astrobiology Program and the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), INTA-CSIC. This program, which is held annually in Santander, Spain, has become a tradition in the astrobiology community. The week-long program for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows provides lectures from international experts, roundtable discussions, student projects, night-sky observations, and a half-day field trip to a nearby site of astrobiological interest.

With more than 5,500 exoplanets now detected and the next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes either in service or in development, we are on the verge of moving beyond mere detection to detailed characterization of these distant worlds by studying their atmospheres.. As we do so, learning more about the formation and evolution of Earth and the other members of our solar system will better enable us to understand the characteristics, processes, and dynamics of exoplanets and the telltale signatures contained in the their atmospheres.