When I was in undergrad, people thought planets were really rare beasts,

that it took like really particular recipes to make a solar system like ours.

Since then, we've found that planets are common.

They're not hard to make, and in fact, they're amazingly easy to make.

That means there's a ton of real estate out there that could potentially be Earth-like.

And on top of which, the chemicals of life are the most common chemicals in the universe.

So if you've got the planet is like, I don't know, your frying pan and you've got the recipe, the ingredients for life too,

seems to me like it's pretty likely that nature will have put the ingredients in the pan and hopefully actually made, you know, more life out there. This is NASA's curious universe.

Our universe is a wild and wonderful place.

I'm your host, Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide.

Are we alone in the universe?

We are fascinated by what it would mean to find life on another planet.

Our Earth is teeming with life.

From lush forests with thousands of interconnected species

to vast ecosystems in the ocean. From complex microorganisms to cities full of people.

Our planet is alive with activity.

But what else could be out there?

We haven't found signs of life anywhere else in our solar system,

but that certainly doesn't mean we aren't looking.

And even further beyond, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe,

full of stars, planets, and moons that we have only begun to discover.

Scientists right here at NASA are combing the universe for space. and moons that we have only begun to discover.

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