The universe has told us the most common types of planets are small planets, and our study shows these are exactly the ones that are most likely to be orbiting Alpha Centauri A and B. Debra Fischer Read Quote
Within the scientific community, there is healthy skepticism. And the question is, ‘How do you ever get to a meaningful null result? How long and how hard do SETI scientists have to look for extraterrestrial intelligence and find nothing before they say, ‘There is nothing. We are alone.’ Debra Fischer Read Quote
If few worlds have microbial life, it dramatically reduces the chances that more complex organisms exist. Debra Fischer Read Quote
Prebiotic chemistry on other worlds is going to be common. Plenty of small rocky planets will have similar chemistry. It’s almost a given. Debra Fischer Read Quote
I hope that vigorous space exploration continues and that humankind will have a space station that resides between Earth and the moon. Outside the gravitational field of Earth, we could launch robotic spacecraft to other destinations in our solar system. Debra Fischer Read Quote
The first exoplanet to be found around a sun-like star was discovered in 1995, just two years before I began studying exoplanet detection. Debra Fischer Read Quote
In 1999, my team discovered that the star Upsilon Andromedae was circled by three gas-giant planets – the first distant multiplanet system ever found. That same year, other researchers observed the first ‘transit’ of an exoplanet – a planet blocking out a small fraction of the starlight as it passes in front of the star. Debra Fischer Read Quote
One of the first thoughts I had, when doing early exoplanet research, was that Earth and its many companions seemed very different from the planetary systems we were detecting. Debra Fischer Read Quote