Fifteen years ago, two Swiss astronomers discovered a planet orbiting the sunlike star 51 Pegasi. Until then, nobody had known if our solar system was unique; now we have a catalog of more than 500 extrasolar worlds.
We still have no idea whether any planet beyond Earth harbors life, but that could soon change too: Scientists are increasingly optimistic that they will find evidence of biological activity on an alien planet within the next few years. In collaboration with the Thirty Meter Telescope and the California Institute of Technology, DISCOVER invited four top researchers in the field to discuss how that extraordinary discovery might unfold.
Gibor Basri is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies stars that have planetary systems. John A. Johnson, an astronomer at Caltech, searches for and characterizes planets around other stars. Sara Seager is a planetary scientist and astrophysicist at MIT whose research focuses on understanding the atmospheres and interiors of exoplanets. Tori Hoehler, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, studies how living things on Earth create detectable changes in their environments. The conversation took place at Caltech and was moderated by DISCOVER’s “Bad Astronomy” blogger, Phil Plait.
What is most exciting to you about the recent discoveries in astrobiology? How are they changing the way we think about our place in the universe?
