When I was a small child, my dad took me to a star party. That's not like where the Hollywood stars are,

but it's where amateur astronomers have their telescopes out. I remember clearly getting to see the

moon through a telescope for the first time. It's absolutely astonishing. The moon is literally a

whole other world. And I just thought, wow, what is out there?

It's so huge and vast and magnificent, you know, whatever's out there beyond Earth.

Hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant.

Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the Science of What Makes Us Tick.

I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you

inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

Sarah Seeger is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist whose research focuses on exoplanets,

planets outside our solar system, orbiting other stars.

When we spoke, she was at MIT, sitting in front of her chalkboard, which was covered in equations.

Sarah, is that the Goodwill hunting chalkboard behind you?

Well, it is MIT.

It's on brand. What are those equations?

Well, these equations describe exoplanets that fortuitously are aligned in a way that they go in front of the star, as seen from our viewpoint.

And we call these transiting planets, and it's the main way we discover exoplanets today.

Sarah's main research goal is to find another Earth, meaning a planet outside our solar system that could sustain life.

We talked about how to detect exoplanets, the likelihood of finding alien life forms out there,

and how her unique childhood circumstances led to her groundbreaking work.

I have so many questions for you about this, But before we get there, take me back to your

origin story. How did you end up in this field? So my origin story, I always love the night

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