The World Motivation
A 'serious' scientist in 1992 or 1993 had to admit the possibility that planets were really rare, that most stars might not have planets. We've gone from there to here - where most stars have planets.
“A 'serious' scientist in 1992 or 1993 had to admit the possibility that planets were really rare, that most stars might not have planets. We've gone from there to here - where most stars have planets.”
— Debra Fischer · Planets
A 'serious' scientist in 1992 or 1993 had to admit the possibility that planets were really rare, that most stars might not have planets. We've gone from there to here - where most stars have planets.
Naturally, we think that finding another Earth-like planet is identifying a site that's at least friendly here for the evolution of life. The primary goal of the Kepler mission is to statistically assess the occurrence of these small terrestrial worlds.
Our field is very focused on finding Earth 2.0, and anything we can do to narrow the search is helpful.
Further ahead, I'd like to see tiny spacebots - smaller than your cell phone - travel outside our solar system to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. By keeping the mass of those spacebots low, we could more easily accelerate them.
Before 1995, the only planets we knew about were the planets in our solar system.
Planets' orbits are elliptical. It's a very pleasing shape.
In the future we're going to have interplanetary, we're going to have two planets that human beings are living on.
My biggest love is still planets and stars. If I hadn't become an artist, I'd be an astronomer because I still love it so much.
We all come from our own little planets. That's why we're all different. That's what makes life interesting.