 Welcome to part four of the Habitable Zone Unplugged, a four-part conversation about exoplanet science with Dr. Robert Hurt and Dr. Joe Hamateski. I'm Calico Field. So in this episode, our two explorers do not end up finding what they're looking for. They don't find a planet that could host humans, at least right away. So were you painting a bleak picture of humanity's search for other Earths, you know, and was this mission a failure? Well, I don't think we were aiming for bleak. We were more aiming at what a challenge it is to find a planet where all the ducks are lined up in a row just right to give all the right properties to be a place where we could step out on the surface and take a deep breath. And really, that's hard. There's a lot that's got to be lined up. But anytime you find a planet with water, that's exciting. You know, we mentioned that the ice planet is covered in ice, but that doesn't mean there might not be liquid water under its surface. We know that there are icy moons in our solar system that actually have oceans underneath the outer ice layer. So there are definitely scientifically interesting things that they've found, but just not something that a human would find habitable. So, you know, in the episode, the two characters are looking for a planet that would be habitable for humans, but are scientists actually thinking about how these exoplanets might be habitable by other life forms? Absolutely. And I think many scientists would agree that when we're searching for habitable worlds, our bar for that is not human habitability, but any sort of life. And so that could be plants, that could be bacteria. There's lots of different organisms on our planet that don't require the same conditions as humans or require very different conditions. And we're not, like I said, just talking about animal life, but it could be plant life or bacteria, which is much more numerous on our planet than humans are. In fact, one of the big questions in astrobiology now is simply how common is life? You know, if you do have a planet in the habitable zone with oceans, everything's perfect, what are the odds that you get life? Is it a one in two coin toss or is it one in two trillion? And until we can start really studying planets and getting that answer, whether we see biosignatures in their atmospheres, I can't even begin to do the statistics of, you know, is life like fleetingly rare or is it something that happens frequently? And this is, I think, you know, the answer for our generation to really get to. Well, thank you both again so much for being here. Again, Dr. Johan Nateski and Dr. Robert Hurt. If you enjoyed this discussion, please check out the rest of the habitable zone exoplanet videos and explore our channel, Universe Unplugged by NASA's Universe of Learning. I'm Calico Field. Thank you so much.