Victoria:
Our guest this week is Dr. Jeff Coughlin. He has been studying exoplanets for almost 15 years. He’s worked for the SETI Institute since 2012 and has been with the Kepler Mission at NASA Ames since then as well. He was a support scientist for five years, working on Kepler’s planet catalogs and has been the director of the Kepler/K2 science office for the past three years. He’s going to talk about exoplanets and life on other planets today.
This week’s questions were submitted by students at Bromwell Elementary and by the listeners through emails and on social media.
Thank you so much for talking to us today.
Dr. Coughlin:
Happy to be here.
Victoria:
All right. Do you have anything you want to add to that little introduction?
Dr. Coughlin:
No, no, that was perfect. It’s just been a fun ride so far and excited to share all the great science we’ve been doing.
Victoria:
(Alex – What is an exoplanet?)
(Sean – How is an exoplanet different than a regular planet?)
Awesome. Well, we are excited to hear it. We’ll start off with a great question. Actually, it’s a set of questions from Alex and Sean that really get at the basics of what you do. Alex wants to know what is an exoplanet. And Sean wants to know how is an exoplanet different than a regular planet.
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, great questions. So, we’re on a planet called Earth, at least I think most of us are. And Earth goes around our Sun along with seven other planets and a whole host of minor planets. And so, our Sun is a star and you look up at the night sky there are other stars. They’re suns just like ours. And so an exoplanet is just a planet going around one of those stars instead of our own sun.
And in terms of how exoplanets are different than regular planets, it turns out there are all types of planets out there, if you can imagine. So there are, we think are planets like Earth that, you know, we’d be maybe comfortable standing on and breathing on; there are planets that are scorching hot, thousands of degrees hot; there are planets that are frozen and snowballs; there are big plants, even bigger than Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system; and we found planets that are even smaller than our own moon; some have crazy orbits, some are fairly circular, like our own. So if you can imagine a planet, out there probably exists.
Victoria:
(Dalia – Can telescopes see them? How do you find them?)
Oh, wow. That’s cool. All right. This next question is from Dalia. Can telescopes see exoplanets? How do you find them?
Dr. Coughlin:
Another great question. It turns out there’s a lot of methods that clever people have come up with over the decades to find exoplanets. And most of them are not actually observing the planet itself. We observe the star that the exoplanet orbits, and we observed the effects that the planet exerts on that star. So for example, two of the main ones.
We’re able to look at the motion of the star. And if we see a constantly coming towards us and away from us, towards us and away from us in a regular motion, we can infer that there’s a planet going around it, tugging on it with its own gravity.
Another main method, that’s the one that Kepler, the telescope I work with, uses. It’s called the transit method. So in that case, we look for exoplanets that happened to line up just right, so that when they go around their star, they happen to pass in front of its we see it from Earth. And when that happens, they block out a little bit of light. So we observe the star, we stare at it, and we see its brightness just get a little dimmer periodically. And if that happens, once every say 10 days, we know there’s a planet going around once every 10 days blocking out the light, and we’re able to measure how big that planet is.
Victoria:
Oh, cool. So kind of like eclipse.
Dr. Coughlin:
Exactly. Yup.
Victoria:
(Ellie – How far away are exoplanets?)
Awesome. This next question is from Ellie. How far away are exoplanets?
Dr. Coughlin:
Another good one. So, it turns out we know the closest exoplanet to us, because the closest star to us is Proxima Centauri, about four light years away. And we’ve now found two planets around that star. So the closest one is four light years away. We can talk more about that one later, but it’s maybe potentially habitable and kind of similar to Earth, which is exciting. So that’s the closest.
The farthest, this just came out I think about a day or two ago, a team found a candidate for a planet in another galaxy, in the Whirlpool Galaxy, that’s 23 million light years away.
Victoria:
Wow!
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah. So you go from four light years, the closest one possible, to 23 million, and there are likely many more exoplanets out billions of light years across the universe that we haven’t found yet.
Victoria:
(Natasha – Do all other suns have exoplanets orbiting around them?)
Wow, that’s crazy. Okay. And Natasha wants to know, do all other suns have exoplanets orbiting around them?
Dr. Coughlin:
I love this question. Cause it’s a good one and it’s a little tricky. So what we know for a hundred percent sure right now is there are more planets out there in the universe than there are stars. So go up, look at the night sky, you see thousands of stars. There are actually hundreds of billions in our Milky Way Galaxy. But if you use a telescope, you can see, we know that there are more planets than that out there. And so on average, every star likely has multiple planets. Now what’s tricky is we don’t know for sure if there are any stars that have no planets around them. So it’s possible you could have a star with zero planets, but that’s probably really rare, that most stars have at least one planet and likely multiple planets. But there’s probably a few oddballs out there that for some reason, either lost their planets or never had any form. That would be a cool find.
Victoria:
Oh, wow. I have never like, as much as I’ve stargazed and looked at the stars, I’ve never thought about that there are planets out there around them.
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah. It’s a, you know, just a rough average, think of our solar system with 8 around that to 10 and think of every star you see, there’s probably 10 more, 10 planets you don’t see.
Victoria:
(Cline – Do exoplanets have moons?)
Oh, wow. That’s incredible. Okay, this next question is from Cline. Do exoplanets have moons?
Dr. Coughlin:
Fantastic one, too. So obviously we’re on Earth. We have a nice moon that gives us some light at night and produces some spectacular eclipses. We haven’t found an exoplanet with a moon, which we would call an exomoon. We haven’t found one conclusively yet, but we’ve had hints of several now. Maybe there was as much as a dozen possible ones out there that we’re not a hundred percent sure about, but likely are. And so, I think very soon, maybe in the next five, 10 years, especially at 10 years, we’ll probably have really solid evidence for at least one of them out there.
But this is cool to think about because with our Earth, we have a moon, but it’s kind of small, there’s no atmosphere, right? Can’t live on it without a lot of technology. But it’s totally possible for there to be a Jupiter-sized or maybe a little bigger than Jupiter-sized planet out there that has an Earth-sized moon. And so you could possibly have life form on it an Earth-like moon that’s around a Jupiter-sized planet. And I think that the Avatar movie from about a decade ago, that’s kind of the premise is life could form on a moon like that. So we need to think about.
Victoria:
(Lina – How many exoplanets are there?)
Oh, wow. That is neat to think about. Okay. so you’ve kind of already touched on this one from Lina, but if you want to elaborate at all. How many exoplanets are there?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, this is, you know, the discovery side. So, you know, back in the 1980s, we didn’t know of any. Starting at the very end of the eighties, early nineties, we started finding them about one once every few years, then once a year and then several a year. And starting with Kepler, we found as much as a thousand a year. So we, we actually know of several thousand exoplanets that humans have found and cataloged. And so that’s just what we know about, but yeah, if you can take that number of, let’s say roughly 10 planets per star, which could be, then, yeah, we have say about 500 billion stars in the Milky Way. That means there are 5 trillion planets in our galaxy alone. And then there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies. So you get into a, I guess zillions of planets out there. It’s a mind-boggling number to think about.
Victoria:
That is mind-boggling.
Dr. Coughlin:
And that’s why I say, if you can imagine a type of planet, it’s probably out there somewhere.
Victoria:
Oh man. Yeah. That’s crazy. Like growing up, you know, we learned about nine and there’s so many more than nine out there.
Dr. Coughlin:
There’s very long acronym to try and remember all a trillion planets.
Victoria:
(Mari – Why is it important to identify exoplanets?)
Will take years just to recite it.
Okay. This next question is from Mari. Why is it important to identify exoplanets?
Dr. Coughlin:
Good question. I think it comes down to a fundamental scientific curiosity. We could kind of ask why is it important to study rocks, why it’s important to study weather and atmosphere. And in this case, it’s neat to learn about exoplanets.
It kinds of tells us a bit about ourselves. Is Earth a unique planet in the cosmos? Did we just have the right perfect special circumstances to be here and have life evolve and humans evolve? Or, are there lots of other planets out there like Earth and life is abundant and we might one day be able to talk with another civilization. So by doing this first step of looking for exoplanets, we’re just now finding out they are common or not. It turns out they are common. And we think planets about the size. And, it’s a matter of energy we get from our Sun, they’re likely out there. So the conditions to have liquid water are likely abundant.
And so that’s the step right now. And the next step is to find out. Hey, do those other exoplanets potentially have water, and do they have life, and how often if life exists out there, does it evolve into something like us that can walk and talk and be on podcasts?
Victoria:
(Aaron – What’s the closest exoplanet to Earth?)
Awesome. And here’s another one you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but Aaron wants to know about what’s the closest exoplanet to Earth.
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah. And so Proxima Centauri B is the name, cause it’s the first planet found around our nearest star Proxima Centauri. And this one was really exciting because it looks to be just about the same massive Earth or maybe, maybe slightly more massive. So it’s probably the right size where it would have a Rocky surface we could stand on, not a crushing atmosphere like Jupiter or Neptune. And it’s the right distance from its star, where if it had an atmosphere similar to Earth, it would probably have similar temperatures, so you could have liquid water on its surface. Not too hot, not too cold, just right.
The only thing against it is Proxima Centauri is a very, what we call active star. So it has a lot of solar flares. Every 11 or 12 years, our own Sun will get active. We’ll get some more x-rays, more flaring activity, and then it’ll get quiet again. But Proxima Centauri can give off flares that are hundreds of times more powerful than anything our sun produces. So there’s a chance that the poor little planet could be baked and radiated and it may not have an atmosphere and it may be tough to have life on it.
So that’s a downside, but we’re not sure. And that’s one of the reasons that we’re going to look at it closer and find out. But yeah, that’s the closest one. That’s the closest exoplanet we ever find because that’s the closest star. It’s our next door neighbor and there’s at least one other planet known around it and likely several more.
So it’s really neat to know that there is a whole system of exoplanets right next door to us.
Victoria:
Oh, that’s so cool. this is not one of the questions, but this is something that I just thought of. Would it be possible that there could be life that’s adapted to all of that radiation from the sun or is it just too strong?
Dr. Coughlin:
I would say totally possible. We’ve found extreme forms of life everywhere on this planet. There’s been bacteria found in nuclear reactors and, you know, everywhere on life, even the harshest conditions. So there must be some limits that life just can’t handle. But, I don’t think we quite know yet if this would be too extreme or not, so it’s possible.
Victoria:
(Ryan – What is your favorite exoplanet?)
Cool. All right. Let’s see. Ryan wants to know what is your favorite exoplanet?
Dr. Coughlin:
Well, I’ll be a little self-absorbed and say my favorite one is what I helped discover earlier this year called Kepler 1649 b. So that’s one reason it’s my favorite. The other is that it was also found using the Kepler telescope that I worked for, and it is the planet most similar in size and likely temperature that Kepler has ever found.
So it, it was only about 5% bigger than the Earth. So it’s almost identical size and it just receives a little less energy from it star than we do from our sun. So if it has the same atmosphere as Earth, then it probably has similar Earth-like conditions. And this is really exciting, cause that was one of the things Kepler was launched to find, was planets similar in size and distance from their stars as Earth is. So that was really exciting to find that. And actually just this year, about 10 years after Kepler launched.
Victoria:
(Kelly – Can telescopes see moons or other planets? Like backyard ones or do they have to be the really big ones like Hubble?)
Oh, wow. That’s super cool. This next question comes through Kelly. Can telescopes see moons or other planets? Like backyard ones or do they have to be really big ones like Hubble?
Dr. Coughlin:
So the neat thing is you could observe an exoplanet in your backyard and many, many people in amateur astronomers have. It turns out you don’t really need a big telescope to find them, especially the planets that are the size of Jupiter. When they pass in front of their star, they actually block out a decent amount of light. So you can’t really see with a naked eye, but if you have a digital camera attached to your telescope and you take a series of images, you can see that the brightness drops by about 1%, which is easily detectable with a backyard telescope and a digital camera. So you’ve had amateurs confirmed planets that way, I think find some of their own, but for the really, you know, Earth sized ones, those are tough. Those do require big telescopes, which is why we launched things like Kepler and the next generation of telescopes being worked on right now. But yeah, it’s neat to think that any person with the right equipment on the backyard could go find one.
Victoria:
(Dalia- How do you figure out if a planet can have life?)
(Diane – How do you go about studying whether there is life on other planets? What constitutes evidence?)
Okay. This next pair of questions comes from Dalia and Diane. Dalia wants to know how do you figure out if a planet can have life? And Diane says, how do you go about studying whether there is life on other planets? What constitutes evidence?
Dr. Coughlin:
Great questions. So earlier I said, in order to see exoplanets, most of the time we’re not observing them directly, but seeing the effects they have. And so looking for life on exoplanets is actually kind of similar. We’re not able to directly, you know, take a sample and put anything under a microscope, but we look for the signs that life leaves behind, that’s evidence that it’s there.
And so this is actually great timing. And the big thing in the news the other week was the detection of a molecule named phosphine on Venus. So our next door planets. And phosphine is a chemical that seems mostly, at least in the quantities they observed, only be able to produce by life. So that was a tantalizing hint that, hey, there might be life on Venus because we don’t have a good explanation of how this molecule got there any other way. It’s not a hundred percent yet, but it’s a good hint. And we’ve seen similar stuff with methane on Mars. With a large amount of methane, you usually need life to produce and be able to sustain it, at least here on Earth. So there are all these different molecules that we call biosignatures that usually only life can produce. And so we look for evidence of those.
So, on exoplanets, we’ve found things like water and methane, carbon dioxide – things that can be produced either way. But if you find enough biomarkers that, really as stack up and say, man, we have a large amount of oxygen and methane and phosphine and all this stuff that shouldn’t be able to exist unless life is producing it. They’ll start to get an overwhelming amount of evidence and say, there’s no other way to explain this, there must be life there. And that’s where I hope we’ll get to one day. Really not too long. And that what’s really exciting is we just began to fund, you know, find molecules and other exoplanets. But the next generation of telescopes are going to be specifically designed to be able to find these types of biomarkers. So for planets kind of down to the size of Earth will actually hopefully be able to observe some of these things. So it’s a, it’s kind of right around the corner in science terms, really in the next decade or two, we could have strong evidence of life on an exoplanet.
Victoria:
(Will – Have you found life on other planets?)
(Ellie- Are you close to finding life on other planets?)
(Curtis- When do you think we will find life on other planets?)
Oh, wow. That is so exciting. What an exciting time to be living in!
Okay. We’ve got a set of questions of three questions all about life. This first question is from Will: have you found life on other planets? Ellie wants to know, are you close to finding life on other planets? And Curtis says, when do you think we all find life on other planets?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, this is great series of questions. We have, we’re starting to get hints that there could, and very likely are, signs of life on Mars, and Venus surprisingly. I said not conclusive yet, but we’re starting to see those biomarkers, those signatures of gases that likely it can only be produced by life and the quantities we observed them.
So we haven’t found solid 100% evidence of life on another planet yet, but we’re, we’re getting close to the planets in our own solar system. So that’s exciting. And yeah, with exoplanets we’re making progress every day. We can start to see some simple molecules and other exoplanets, but if we start detecting a bunch of biomarkers on a single exoplanet, which could happen with the next generation of telescopes or, or definitely the ones after that, then we would have some really solid evidence of life.
And so I think we’ll find it, I think in our lifetime we’ll have good evidence. Absolutely the listener’s lifetime. Next 30, 40 years, especially. So I don’t know, we live in really exciting times. It’s again, going to be hard. We won’t be able to have a sample from an exoplanet for, you know, many, many, many generations, many, many. But the evidence could eventually be overwhelming that there has to be life on this planet and what a great goal for the future of humanity to say, all right, it may take a long time and maybe hundreds of years and generations of work, but let’s see if we can design an interstellar spacecraft to visit that planet and check out the life in detail.
Victoria:
(Lina – How far away is the closest planet that might have life on it?)
Oh, that would be amazing. And then this question is from Lina. How far away is the closest exoplanet that might have life on it?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, again, I go back to Proxima Centauri B. It probably is the closest planet that could have life on it. The planet is about the right size, similar to Earth. The distance from its star is about right. Again, there’s some challenges with the star having a lot of flaring and X-ray activity, some radiation, but, it’s still a good possibility. And so that that’s our closest neighbor at four light years away.
And the current statistics we have are that there are probably other similar Earth-sized planets, definitely within 10 light years. So really quite close. It’s still far in human terms, very far in human terms, but that’s the galaxy, but in galactic terms, that’s right next door. That’s the house down the street. Pretty exciting that potential life could be quite close to us.
Victoria:
(Alex- If you find water, is there always life?)
That is exciting! Okay. And then speaking of some evidence for life, and getting at these biomarkers, Alex wants to know if you find water, is there always life?
Dr. Coughlin:
So certainly on Earth here, everywhere, where there is liquid water, there is life. Obviously, it all throughout the oceans and waters, we know it, but there have been deep, deep, deep lakes that have been isolated for millions of years with water that’s just near freezing and it has life in it. There’s water in the pools of nuclear reactors that have life flourishing in them. Water exists deep beneath the Earth surface. And we keep digging down and there’s, as long as there’s a little bit of liquid water there, we find life. Even the atmosphere in the clouds of our own atmosphere, there’s life there.
So that’s really good evidence that if the conditions are right on an exoplanet and there’s liquid water and life happened to already be there, you’re probably have life grow and flourish. And that’s life as we know it. So that’s why for what we call habitable planets. We look for planets that could look at liquid water on the surface.
So not to say there couldn’t be different forms of life that don’t need liquid water. That’s certainly a possibility, but as far as life as we know it, yeah. We think that there’s liquid water, there’s a good chance that there’ll be life.
Victoria:
(Kurt – What would you do if you found life on other planets?)
Cool. Alright. Kurt wants to know – this is a fun question – what would you do if you found life on other planets?
Dr. Coughlin:
At first, I’d be really, really excited jumping up and down and going, oh, how cool. But yeah, the implications are interesting. Cause we find, let’s say we find life on Venus or Mars. One that tells us life can flourish environments that are, that are a bit different than Earth. Both of those would be challenging places for humans to live in. But if we find bacteria, that’s a good, good evidence that life is hardy. But it could have, it could have come from Earth or you could have an asteroid impact that ejected life from Earth into Venus or Mars. And it happened to survive and adapt. But if we found strong evidence for life on an exoplanet, that’s good evidence that life can independently originate in multiple parts of the universe.
We know chemistry is the same everywhere. We have good understandings for the origin of life on Earth. If the conditions are right, you know, the molecules will come together, but we don’t know a hundred percent sure that Earth wasn’t a really special condition. So if we find evidence of life elsewhere, even just once, around an exoplanet, then we know life is probably common all throughout the universe and the odds got a lot bigger that we probably have intelligent neighbors somewhere in our galaxy.
Victoria:
Cool! And is there a way that we would be able to tell, on Venus and Mars, if, if that life was from an asteroid that carried it from Earth to those planets?
Dr. Coughlin:
That would be really exciting. We would have to either get a sample of it and bring it back to Earth for analysis or send a spacecraft that could analyze it in place there.
But we could assuming its life, as we know it, it’s going to have DNA. And if it has, you know, DNA or RNA, we can sequence it. And we either find out that, oh yeah, this thing is really common to modern life or it’s common to life that existed a billion years ago. Or we may find that this is completely different than anything we have on Earth.
And that would be exciting. Cause that might say that that life originated on Mars or Venus. Yeah, so that that’s possible in our lifetime. We might be able to find that and know that, which is super exciting.
Victoria:
(Natasha – Can there be life/water on moons?)
Oh, that’d be cool. All right. And this is a good follow-up question from Natasha. Can there be life/water on moons?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, great question and answer is absolutely. So even the moons in our own solar system, we have some moons that are, large amounts, nearly pure water. So you have, Europa around Jupiter and Enceladus around Saturn or both moons that we know have lots of water. And we think that both of them have a large liquid water ocean beneath their icy crust.
So both of them periodically get heated and stretched as they, as they orbit their planets. So we think there’s large amounts of liquid water, and we actually have good evidence cause, both of them have water geysers off their surface, especially Enceladus. So we observed these plumes of water being injected into the space as parts of the crust open and water ejected out and then freezes.
And what’s exciting, missions are being designed right now, that could fly through those water plumes and then analyze it and see, you know, if there’s direct evidence of life or organic materials in those geysers. And so that’s, if we have moons like that in our own solar system, certainly there’s exomoons like that, or even exomoon like Earth out there.
Victoria:
(Brooke – Do you think there is life on other planets looking for us too?)
Wow. That’s incredible. Brooke wants to know, do you think there is life on other planets looking for us too?
Dr. Coughlin:
I love it. And, I think the odds are quite high. One of the reasons humans were so successful evolutionarily it is I think partly our curiosity. We are willing to explore and to, to try new things and that led to, you know, toolmaking and civilization.
And so I think of another species, intelligent species originated elsewhere in the universe. They would need that trait to, to be able to survive and adapt and develop technology. And so I think the odds that another civilization evolves, they’re going to be curious to where I think they’re going to be looking for other signs of life as well. I guess that’s, that’s my take on it.
Victoria:
(Archie – If there is life on other planets, would they really like Reese’s pieces like ET?)
This is a fun question from Archie. If there’s life on other planets, would they really like Reese’s pieces like ET?
Dr. Coughlin:
I think they’d be crazy not to, I mean, one Reese’s pieces is the delicious, but it’s a lot of sugar. Sugar is a great source of energy for all these all life on Earth.
So, we like, we like sugar for that reason. It’s, it’s an easy source of energy. So I think aliens would like sugar too.
Victoria:
(Cline – Do you think it would be possible for cell phones to pick up communications from other planets?)
Oh, that’s fun. Alright. Cline wants to know, do you think it would be possible for cell phones to pick up communications from other planets?
Dr. Coughlin:
This was a neat question, because my original thought is, is no for a cell phone because, somebody sending it and it will be, you know, quite so far away, it’d have to be an extremely powerful signal for one of our cell phones to be sensitive, to pick it up, which is one of the reasons we build giant radio telescopes that are, you know, kilometers in size to be able to detect signals.
But I really like this question because it reminded me that there are some projects that I’ve seen, where scientists are trying to use whole networks of cell phones to detect signals. So one cellphone by itself is small, but you know, there are billions of humans on Earth, a good chunk of them have cell phones.
So if you have millions or billions of cell phones all working together, you might be able to use that to detect signals. And there, there have been efforts to do, to detect things called cosmic rays, radiation from space, using cell phones because they add up to quite a large area of, to combine them. So actually a pretty neat, innovative question that, as we get more and more cell phones might be able to combine them all to search.
Victoria:
(Will- Have you ever been to outer space?)
(Brooke – If going to outer space becomes like flying on an airplane, would you do it?)
Alright. This is another pair of questions. The first one is from Will, have you ever been to outer space? And the second one, Brooke wants to know if going to outer space becomes like flying on an airplane, would you do it?
Dr. Coughlin:
Like I said, I haven’t been to outer space, but I space out a lot, so I feel like I’ve been there at times.
But, you know, so personally I don’t like to fly. It’s a silly fear of flying, which I, you know, I know mentally it’s completely safe and fine, but I don’t like it. That said if I got the chance to actually go up into space, I do it in a heartbeat. Even though I might be scared out of my mind for the right up, God it’d be so worth it to be up there.
Every astronaut who’s gone up into space and the space station has said what a life changing experience it is to be there, looking at this little planet out the window, and knowing that the entire humanity and all of civilization and everything we’ve ever known and done, it’s all in that little pale blue dot right there.
So yeah, in a heartbeat I’d go.
Victoria:
I can’t even imagine. That would be incredible.
Dr. Coughlin:
So cool.
Victoria:
(Alex – What is your favorite part of your job?)
All right. Switching gears a little bit. We’ve got a couple of questions about you, and movies and films. So Alex wants to know, is a question about you. What is your favorite part of your job?
Dr. Coughlin:
This may sound corny, but the favorite part of my job is working with other people. You know, you can learn and do a lot on your own, but for some of the big things, like, you know, finding lots of other planets and looking for light, it’s a team effort. And it’s amazing what can happen when you bring teams of tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people together to make one big project and have one big science goal and one that works and pays off and you launch a space shuttle or a big telescope, and you make a big scientific discovery. There’s just, there’s nothing better of knowing you’ve been part of that big team.
Victoria:
(Diane – How have science fiction literature and films shaped our ideas of what life on other planets might be like?)
That’s awesome. Diane wants to know how have science fiction literature and films shaped our ideas of what life on other planets might be like.
Dr. Coughlin:
That’s a good one too. I really love sci-fi films myself personally. And I think one of the reasons is that if we’re looking for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, we kind of need to have a new way of thinking. And it’s hard to use your current way of thinking to think of a new way of thinking. So aliens, that they could think and communicate like us, that’s possible, but it’s also really possible that they will just think in completely different abstract terms.
And so the people that have great imaginations and write awesome sci-fi books and movies, I think that really helped to think about what could that look like. And that then informs the scientists of what should we be looking for, and ways to interpret observations we may get in the future.
One of the kind of newer sci-fi films I loved is the Arrival from 2016. And, that’s a, if you haven’t seen it, that’s a great movie, that will definitely make you think about different ways of communication that are alien to us.
Victoria:
Awesome. I’ll have to watch that.
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, it’s definitely worth sitting down and watch. So fun.
Victoria:
(Dalia – Are there any movies about finding life on other planets that are close to what its actually like to look for life on other planets?)
Okay. I’ll have to do that.
All right, this is a good follow-up question from Dalia. Are there any movies about finding life on other planets that are close to what it’s actually like to look for life on other planets?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, one of my favorites, I think one of the best still out there, it’s a little older at this point from 1997. It doesn’t feel that long ago. but it’s the movie Contact. And so Contact is about somebody who actually works for a SETI Institute (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), like I do. And it’s actually based on Jill Tarter, who was a current longstanding SETI, somebody who formed the SETI Institute and is still with us today. And so the character is based on her, and she’s actually using radio telescopes to search for the signs of intelligent life. And if you haven’t seen, I won’t ruin the plot, but great fun and interesting things happen. And so, I liked that movie cause it’s pretty well based in reality and then the sci-fi element comes into it.
And then more recently, there’s the movie Arrival in 2016, and that’s more about aliens coming to us. But that’s a great one to kind of think about different ways of thinking, and how aliens might communicate differently from us.
Victoria:
Awesome. Yeah. I loved Contact. I love that movie.
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah. It’s trying to a great action in the as everyone knows the book written by Carl Sagan is even better. Or it’s, I would say better. The book has different specific details to it, that go into even different sci-fi elements that are kind of mind blowing. So definitely worth a look too.
Victoria:
Yeah. I’ll have to add the book to my list. I’ve never read it. That sounds good though.
Dr. Coughlin:
Really good to read. Yeah. It’s quick.
Victoria:
(Jacque- Do you like watching movies about aliens?)
Okay. Another movie question. This is from Jacque. Do you like watching movies about aliens?
Dr. Coughlin:
Yeah, I’m a total sci-fi junkie. So, I think it’s one fun to imagine what the future is like. And part of that being, you know, looking for aliens, and fun to think of what alien life would be like, you know, if it’s out there. I think I mentioned earlier, it helps us inform of how to better search for life out there and maybe interpret what we see. But also it’s kind of a neat reflection on us by thinking about what aliens could be like, it makes us think about our own society, our own world. And that I think is one of the most powerful things about sci-fi, is it lets us reflect on ourselves and what we can do to make the world a better place.
Victoria:
I like that. Do you have a favorite movie? Favorite sci-fi movie?
Dr. Coughlin:
Oh, Gosh. I love them all. I’m trying to think of a go to. I know it’s really bad, but honestly, the Marvel movies. Just for the action. Yeah. Not that it’s as deep as sci-fi, but yeah.
Victoria:
(Ellie – What do you do when you aren’t at work?)
Yeah, that’s fun.
All right. Some more questions about you. Ellie wants to know what do you do when you aren’t at work?
Dr. Coughlin:
Hmm. I like lots of things. I love kind of learning about everything. And so I, gosh, let’s see.
I like working on my house. I got an old house. I like to try and remodel and keep from falling down. Like gardening, and making my own food, stuff like that.
There is a local museum I volunteer at, which is always fun.
And I play a lot of video games to unwind and relax. So, that’s always, especially sci-fi video games. I’m a sci-fi junkie.
But yeah, just in general, it’s just fun to learn about everything, from how paint, to how to look for aliens.
Victoria:
(Ben – Is this what you wanted to be when you grew up?)
Nice. Okay. This question is from Ben. Is this what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Dr. Coughlin:
It wasn’t in my mind, until, basically until I got to college. I think in kindergarten, elementary school, I wanted to make pizza and then I want to be an accountant. Yeah. I think economics at some point. I knew I liked physics going through high school, so when I started college, I kind of knew I wanted to major in physics. But actually, I thought I wanted to go into medicine and become a doctor, maybe radiology, something like that. So I worked at a hospital for about a year doing some medical research work, and I realized, no, this really isn’t for me. And at the same time, I took my first actual astronomy class in college, and there, I just totally fell in love for the astronomy. and then I just went a hundred percent the astronomy for a long time.
But what’s kind of neat I got to that is, it was fun to try lots of new things to find what you love. And even these days, I’m not sure I’ll be in astronomy for the rest of my life. Cause there’s just so many fun and interesting things out there to learn about and get good at and to do so. I always like to tell people, you know, find something you enjoy doing, absolutely. But don’t be afraid to change it up and change paths if you find something else you enjoy over a, we’ve got a whole lifetime of things to learn and explore. So there’s lots out there.
Victoria:
(Luca – Do you ever get scared that if you find life on other planets it might attack us?)
Awesome. And then this question, this is a fun question from Luca. Do you ever get scared that if you find life on other planets it might attack us?
Dr. Coughlin:
I love this one, especially from the sci-fi angle. Cause we have movies where aliens are friendly and they like Reese’s pieces. And we have movies where they come and attack us and, you know, blow up famous monuments.
So I’m optimistic on this question. To me, if you’re an intelligent civilization, you evolved on a planet just like us, and are subject to the same laws of physics and chemistry. And so I think in order to have developed technology and an interstellar civilization, at some point, you evolve to learn how to work together as humans do. And if you’ve learned how to work together, you probably have some empathy, some understanding of society and you know. Well, certainly humans have their cons in terms of a track record over civilization, we’ve done a lot of good things and most people have empathy for other people. And overall, we’re respectful to try not contaminate even Mars and Venus. I think overall we’d be respectful of others. So, I’m not really worried about that. If they were able to get here, they have nothing to gain from attacking us. Yeah. We have water, and water is abundant in the universe. There’s not much else of value. So I think if we find another species, that’d be a, it’d be overall positive.
Victoria:
(Jen – My whole life I have avoided STEM for fear of failing in the field. Now, I have two degrees in Arts & Humanities, but I want to “go back” and see if I could successfully study science. How do I make the switch when I can’t afford to go back to school?)
Oh, that’s good. I like that.
All right. And this is our very last question. This question comes from Jen, my whole life I have avoided STEM for fear of failing in the field. Now, I have two degrees in Arts & Humanities, but I want to “go back” and see if I could successfully study science. How do I make the switch when I can’t afford to go back to school?
Dr. Coughlin:
Okay, great question going back to you can do lots of things in your life. I would say you don’t have to go back to school and get a specific science degree. There are actually lots of different jobs and people I work with that are all under the STEM umbrella. So just in the Kepler Mission, we have people who do graphics design, and they work on making for graphics that communicate our results to the public. We have people that do public relations and are really good at writing about our science and talking about it and promoting it. We have, you know, project managers and people that are good at organizing work, managers that are good at working with people, keeping the team organized. And there are just so many different roles you can fulfill working for a scientific mission or scientific project without having to go get an advanced degree in science.
And so I think one recommendation could be to maybe volunteer at a local science center or planetarium, you can kind of get to know the content without having to go and get the degree. And that’s a good launching pad for having those desperately needed arts and humanities type backgrounds in science projects.
But if you do find you’re really do want to get a degree in science, and do that specific type of work, the nice thing about STEM is usually once you get to grad school, there are stipends and it’s paid for. So, people to grad school and beyond and STEM usually don’t have to go into debt to do it, which is nice as something to look at.
Victoria:
Awesome. Well, that is all of our questions. Do you have any questions or comments for the listeners?
Dr. Coughlin:
No. I just wanted to thank everybody submitting such great questions, and I’ve loved studying the universe cause it’s the biggest laboratory you can think of and there’s just an endless amount of data to study and things to look at. And again, whatever part of the life you’re in, there’s there, we live in such a unique and exciting time where there’s a new discovery every day. Literally making science fiction come true every day. So I think just stay tuned and we’re going to find so many more amazing things in our lifetime.
Victoria:
Very cool. Thank you.
Dr. Coughlin:
Thank you.
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