HEADLINE: MIT Professor Explains the Discovery of Ionic Liquid, Expanding Search for Extraterrestrial Life GUEST AND TITLE: Professor Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show SUMMARY: Professor Sa
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
GUEST AND TITLE: Professor Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show
SUMMARY: Professor Sara Seager discusses the accidental lab discovery of ionic liquids, a non-evaporating liquid salt potentially sustaining life on planets without water, expanding the traditional "habitable zone" concept. She envisions future missions like a Solar Gravitational Lens Telescope. For her lifetime, Professor Seager prioritizes privately funded "Morning Star missions" to Venus, beginning with Rocket Lab in 2026, to directly study its cloud particles for signs of life in this overlooked sister planet.
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Transcript
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| 0:23.6 | I'm John Batser visiting with Professor Sarah Seeger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, |
| 0:30.4 | which is very generous, helping us to understand a discovery that I did not know existed. |
| 0:39.9 | To search for, it's called ionic fluid and it behaves in a fashion that sustains it even more than water because it doesn't |
| 0:46.5 | evaporate. However, that is the revelation in a lab and the professors indicated they're looking |
| 0:52.5 | but have not founded in planets yet. There are a lot |
| 0:55.4 | of exoplanets out there. So, Professor, an unlimited budget is yours. Where do you want to go next? |
| 1:01.4 | Thank you. All right. Well, I would do two things. First, I would try to do sample return from |
| 1:07.5 | solar system planets, that is scooping up part of Venus's clouds, |
| 1:12.1 | Mars, other planets, and bring it back to Earth to look for literally cells moving around. |
| 1:17.6 | However, I do want to give you what is my dream for the very far future. |
| 1:21.8 | And that is a special telescope called the Solar Gravitational Lens Telescope. |
| 1:26.7 | It's a telescope that would have to travel |
| 1:29.0 | 500 times the Earth's sun distance and would use our sun as a lens using gravity, that mass-bends |
| 1:36.7 | space, to magnify a distant background planet. And if this can be done, and we don't know yet, |
| 1:42.7 | but people are working towards it for future generations, if it can be done, and we don't know yet, but people are working towards it for future |
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