Sara Seager will keep searching, because she has no other choice.
“The belief there is ‘something else,’ something else beyond the tedium of our daily lives, whether people express that through religion, belief in UFOs or the desire to find intelligent life in the universe, it’s all part of who we are as a species,” she said.
The Toronto-born Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor is a pioneer in the hunt for exoplanets (planets that orbit stars other than our Sun). Her ground-breaking research ranges from the detection of exoplanet atmospheres to innovative theories about life on other worlds to development of novel space mission concepts.
Seager brings her search to Western as she delivers the 10th annual Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX) Distinguished Public Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Paul Davenport Theatre in Talbot College. She will discuss the search for Earth’s cousin and, should anyone ask, about the search for the far-more-elusive Earth’s twin.
Last year, Seager was awarded a $625,000 genius grant from Chicago’s MacArthur Foundation for her work in studying exoplanets. In 2012, she was named among Time Magazine‘s 25 Most Influential in Space.
This ‘astronomical Indiana Jones’ remains on a quest after the field’s holy grail – the discovery of a true Earth’s twin orbiting a distant star.
“As humans, we are born explorers. It’s sort of cliché to say space is the ‘final frontier,’ but it’s true. There are so many planets out there; we know already every star in our Milky Way Galaxy should have at least one planet. The shear space is just phenomenal,” she said.
“We are the first people who can say we’re on the verge of finding another planet. And I hope, some day, our descendents will find a way to go there. That journey of exploration is there.”