Is Earth Truly One of a Kind? Exploring Exoplanets with Josh Winn [Ep. 463]

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Is Earth truly one of a kind? This question has fascinated humans for decades, and with today's advanced technology, we're finally able to explore it scientifically. In this episode, renowned astrophysicist Josh Winn joins us to discuss the fascinating world of exoplanets, planetary systems, and the quest to discover other habitable planets. Josh shares the latest breakthroughs in exoplanet research, from unexpected discoveries like hot Jupiters to the ongoing efforts to detect Earth-like planets around distant stars. He also explores the challenges of studying planets light-years away and the exciting future missions that could reveal more about the universe beyond our solar system. Tune in to learn more about exoplanets and life beyond our solar system! Key Takeaways: 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:34 Rare Earth Hypothesis 00:06:04 The role of stars in exoplanet habitability 00:13:23 Judging a book by its cover 00:16:50 Could aliens detect Tokyo? 00:19:42 The Habitable Worlds Observatory 00:22:06 Methods for detecting exoplanets 00:25:21 The lazy method 00:30:03 Avi Loeb and Oumuamua 00:36:08 The nuts and bolts of Josh's work 00:44:29 The role of technology in detecting exoplanets 00:52:48 Why should young people be interested in exoplanets? 00:57:22 Outro Additional resources: 📚 Get The Little Book of Exoplanets by Josh Winn: https://a.co/d/9PK4XFV ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	exploring exoplanets, they probably think we're out there visiting them. That's totally out of the
0:04.9	question. All we can do is trying, we're stuck here on the earth. All we can do is use telescopes and
0:10.5	cameras and our ingenuity to try to figure out whether planets do exist around nearby stars. So it's
0:15.3	kind of amazing that there are five or six different ways that all work pretty well.
0:30.2	Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
0:33.8	Open the pod bay doors, hell.
0:38.6	So we're going to get to your book, Josh, but we're going to start with the rare earth hypothesis,
0:43.8	which is something I've always wanted to ask, someone of your incredible intellect and breadth of knowledge. And that's not the conditions that allow complex life on Earth are so specific
0:50.2	that intelligent life certainly, maybe life at all, is very likely uncommon in the universe.
0:57.2	And I wonder how you would react to this statement. If you got a letter from God or Mother Nature
1:03.4	and it said life is only existent on earth, everything else is barren, cold, and lifeless. Would you still say
1:13.9	there's a point to studying exoplanets? I think so. I think that the search for life is definitely
1:20.4	one of the field's great kind of animating principles. And that's true of the public. And it's
1:26.8	also true of scientists. You know,
1:28.4	it's a thrill to be able to be part of this very long-term quest. And I remain interested in that
1:34.0	question. I don't happen to work on it personally. I am not really on a day-to-day basis trying to
1:39.9	find life on other planets. Mostly about trying to find the planets and study their properties.
1:47.4	And there are a bunch of reasons to do it that have nothing to do with life. One of them is just
1:51.6	generally exploratory. What is out there? We all learn in elementary school about the properties
1:57.3	of the planets and the solar system, and each one has its own story.
2:01.6	You know, Saturn has rings, and Uranus has tipped on its side. So what are the other planetary
2:07.3	systems like? What kind of surprising features do they have? Do the planets resemble the ones
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