#116 – Sara Seager: Search for Planets and Life Outside Our Solar System

Sara Seager is a planetary scientist at MIT, known for her work on the search for exoplanets.

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Episode links:
Sara’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/profsaraseager
Sara’s Website: https://www.saraseager.com/
The Smallest Lights in the Universe (book): https://amzn.to/3g3LfHA

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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:32 – Falling in love with the stars
09:55 – Are we alone in the universe?
15:27 – Seager equation for number of habitable planets
27:48 – Exoplanets
34:44 – Earth-like exoplanets
40:43 – Intelligent life
52:34 – Number of planets per star
55:09 – Space exploration
57:36 – Traveling to Proxima Centauri
1:00:52 – Starshade
1:07:34 – Using the sun as a gravitational lens
1:09:44 – Starshot
1:12:45 – Rogue planets
1:15:44 – The Smallest Lights in the Universe
1:30:15 – Book recommendations
1:37:48 – Advice for a young person
1:39:29 – Meaning of life