PAOC Spotlights
The World Sees Me as the One Who Will Find Another Earth
In an in-depth piece for The New York Times Magazine, writer Chris Jones spotlights MIT Prof. and astrophysicist Sara Seager’s journey in searching for an Earthlike exoplanet.
Jones writes that, until recently, exoplanets were largely a theoretical construct—logic dictating their presence, but proof remained elusive.
But Seager’s pursuit of her love of the stars helped the field of astrophysics to open up, and the dream of finding a habitable planet become a reality. Emerging as a young expert in exoplanets, Seager has greatly influenced the scientific community. “There has been an explosion of knowledge in the relatively short time since, in part because of Seager’s pioneering theoretical work in using light to study the composition of alien atmospheres.”
And while Seager’s path to finding exoplanets hasn’t always been smooth, she’s made great strides from her home base at MIT, where continues to set her sights higher and further, looking for, “a small light where there wasn’t one before.”