Analyzing Light Absorption in Planetary Atmospheres

This episode features a wide-ranging interview with Sara Seager and David Charbonneau, who share the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. Charbonneau is at Harvard University and Seager is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and they won the prize for their discoveries of exoplanets and the characterization of their atmospheres.

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. Astronomers have confirmed the existence of more than 5000 exoplanets, and that number keeps increasing.

In this podcast, the two laureates talk about the astonishing range of exoplanets that have been observed and explain how astronomers study the atmospheres of these faint and distant objects. Seager and Charbonneau also talk about the search for biosignatures of life on distant exoplanets and look to the future of exoplanet astronomy.

This podcast is sponsored by The Kavli Prize.