Dr. Sara Seager

We see them crossing the face of the apparent star, and we have to

really, really dig deep in our data analysis methods.

And we see a bunch of spectral features.

And same thing, any sign of life is probably going to be a tiny signal.

And we'll be asking ourselves, is the signal real?

And then we'll be arguing about that.

And then we will ask, is it attributed to the right gas that we think it is?

Or could it be one of many other gases?

And even if we as astronomers all agree on those first two, how will we know whether it's made by life or whether it is coming out of the interior of the planet?

Because we have no idea what's coming out of the interior.

The point is that Venus is right next door.

We have sent spacecraft to Venus.

We can send more spacecraft to Venus.

We have telescopes that can observe it in great detail.

But exoplanets, we have almost no information about them.

And it makes that problem many, many millions of times harder.

I think so, and I think it has already.

And by the way, Ira, I want you to know I'm still working on exoplanets.

I'm working really hard to understand all the kinds of planets out there and all the kinds of false positives that might get confused with future potential signs of life.

But it does in two ways.