David Kipping

And these two both have a really strong bias towards finding these hot planets.

Now,

Hot planets are interesting.

The chemistry in their atmosphere is fascinating.

It's very alien.

An example of one that's particularly close to my heart is TRACE-2b, whose atmosphere is so dark, it's less reflective than coal.

And so they have really bizarre photometric properties, yet at the same time, they resemble nothing like our own home.

And so it said there's two types of astrophysicists.

The astrophysicists who care about how the universe works.

They want to understand the mechanics of the machinery of this universe.

Why did the Big Bang happen?

Why is the universe expanding?

How are galaxies formed?

And there's another type of astrophysicist which perhaps speaks to me a little bit more.

It whispers into your ear, and that is why we hear

Are we alone?

Are there others out there?

And ultimately, along this journey, the hot plants aren't going to get us there.

When we're looking for life in the universe, it seems to make perfect sense that there should be plants like our own out there, maybe even moons like our own planet around gas giants that could be habitable.

And so my research has been driven by trying to find these more terrestrial globes that might resemble our own planet.