#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