Sara Seager
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031269
Today is the birthday of astronomer Sara Seager, who was born on 21 July 1971 in Toronto, Canada. Seager is currently a professor at MIT and is known for her work on the atmospheres of exosolar planets. She coined the term “gas dwarf” to describe high mass, super-Earth planets with atmospheres that are mostly hydrogen and helium and has worked on developing techniques to detect chemical signatures in exoplanet atmospheres. For that work, she was an MacArthur Fellow in 2013. Seager also developed an alternate version of the Drake equation that focuses on the number of planets with gases that are considered key to the presence of life.
Date in History: 22 July 1971
