Exoplanets
are planets just like the planets in our solar system,
but they orbit around other stars, such as the stars you can see in the sky.
Personally, I think it's very important to study them
because it gives us context to our place in the universe.
Planets come in a much, much more diverse range of properties
than just what we see in the Solar System.
I see astrophysics and searching for exoplanets as intrinsically exploratory.
We want to understand everything about the universe
and the type of objects that are out there.
It tells us whether Earth is special, whether the Solar System is special,
and it's like a family tree. We’re populating it,
and seeing the little branches, and seeing which planets are closer to us,
which ones are cousins, which ones are our relatives.
Now we are able to search for atmospheres just like the atmosphere of the Earth,
but around other smaller rocky planets, around other stars.
With so many exoplanets out there, it really depends too
on ... It really depends on what questions we want to answer.
Are we going to be focused purely on rocky planets, or should we
expand our search to larger planets, which could also be potentially habitable?
The other thing that I'm really excited about is learning about a new type of planet
that we have evidence for
that’s called “water world.” And we theorized the existence
of these worlds, which are mostly water, which are water dominated.
We don't see the surface of these planets.
So everything we can say about the surface, we infer from looking at the atmosphere.
You can actually detect atmospheric features in this planet.
I am particularly very excited
to see if there's any underlying behavior in our population of planets.
Are they linked by some sort of rule?
Is there a rule for how planets work?
Like, the Holy Grail is “are we alone?”
So, for the longest time we weren’t sure
if Webb was actually going to answer that question. On Earth,
our concept of life changes depending on cultures, depending on history.
So, I am certain
that by the end of the lifetime of JWST we will have a different idea
of what life means, and Webb will help inform that.