David Kipping

And all of a sudden, the whole astronomy community shifted and huge numbers of people that were

once upon a time studying eclipsing binaries changed to becoming exoplanet scientists.

And so that was the first wave of exoplanet scientists.

We're now in a kind of a second wave or even a third wave where people like me to some degree kind of grew up with the idea of exoplanets as being normal.

I was 11 years old, I guess, when the first exoplanet was discovered.

And so to me, it was a fairly normal idea to grow up with.

And so we've been trained

in exoplanets from the very beginning.

That brings a different perspective to those who have maybe transitioned from a different career path.

I suspect with exomoons and probably technosignatures, astrobiology, many of the topics which are seen at the fringes of what's possible,

They will all open up into becoming mainstream one day, but there's a lot of people who are just waiting, waiting for that assuredness that there is a secure career net ahead of them before they commit.

Yeah.

If you knew now that in five years, 10 years, the first life would be discovered elsewhere, you knew that in advance.

it would surely affect the way you approach your entire career.

Especially someone junior in astronomy, you would surely be like, well, this is clearly going to be the direction I have to dedicate my classes and my training and my education towards that direction.

All the new textbooks, all the stuff to be written.

Yeah, I think a lot of us are already seeing it to some degree with Venus and the phosphine incident.

But we've seen it before with Bill Clinton and the White House lawn announcing life from Mars.

There are inevitably going to be spurious claims, or at least claims which are ambiguous to some degree.

There will be, for sure, a high-profile journal like Nature or Science that will one day publish a paper saying,