Dimitar Sasselov: How we found hundreds of Earth-like planets

http://www.ted.com Astronomer Dimitar Sasselov and his colleagues search for Earth-like planets that may, someday, help us answer centuries-old questions about the origin and existence of biological life elsewhere (and on Earth). How many such planets have they found already? Several hundreds.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Dimitar
• Sasselov
• TEDTalks
• TED
• talks
• astronomy
• astrobiology
• planetology
• planets
• biology
• Kepler
• telescope
• NASA
• extraterrestrial
• life
• Earth

[jarnoverhoofstad]

I think this presentation will become historically very significant within a year or two...

[ASlANproductions]

best part was the ending with the old guy

[KnowlegeIsPower1210]

There are many races out there. Imagine how the sun supports life on on Terra and our solar system. For every star you see in the sky, is just another sun and more evidence for life. Life manifests where it wants to, in the best and worst of surroundings. If Mr. Sasselov was interested at finding life, it would be wise check the star systems of Andromeda, Orion, Draco, Taurus, Canis Major, Ursa Minor, and Cetus (to name a few) very closely...

[OvieTecEJ2]

makes u think even more :s

[diodoubled]

did anyone see the cartoon after the clip it was pretty good ?!:)

[Triaxionality]

looool, while legit scientists are exploring more and more about this universe, there are still crazy creationists walking around

[MikeMallorca2010]

I vote Dimitar for president for that epic accent :D

[CarnivalNights]

@kylebstiff Good point. I accept that answer. They probably do it for filler then I suppose or just to maintain professionalism since it's a bit of a standard.

[kylebstiff]

Also, I think the average person who watches TED-style videos (you, me, etc.) probably have this bias where we assume we are in the minority, and the majority of people take allegories from the Bible as literal truth... and then we think that we have to spread the truth about how science works, which seems absurd to me because no one who has ever come within fifty mouse-clicks of watching a TED Talks video is even remotely in the dark about how science works.

[kylebstiff]

@CarnivalNights I swear I'm not trying to be a troll. I'm not saying that everyone who watches TED is a scientist and therefore no explanation for "what is science" is needed, I'm saying that Western laymen in 2011 (that is, 99.99 percent of us) already have a grasp on what science is all about. None of us here are scratching our heads over this strange, newfangled "scientific method" and its *crazy* assertion that the world is older than 6000 years.