bio.wikisort.org - Researcher

Sara Seager OC (born 21 July 1971) is a Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist.[2] She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is known for her work on extrasolar planets and their atmospheres. She is the author of two textbooks on these topics,[5][6] and has been recognized for her research by Popular Science,[7] Discover Magazine,[8] Nature,[9] and TIME Magazine.[10] Seager was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 citing her theoretical work on detecting chemical signatures on exoplanet atmospheres and developing low-cost space observatories to observe planetary transits.[11]

Sara Seager OC
Seager at a 2016 conference
Born	(1971-07-21) 21 July 1971 (age 51)[1] Toronto, Ontario, Canada[2]
Nationality	Canadian-American
Citizenship	Canada-United States[1]
Alma mater	Harvard University PhD University of Toronto BSc
Known for	Search for extrasolar planets
Spouse	Charles Darrow
Children	2
Awards	Order of Canada (2020, Officer) MacArthur Fellowship (2013) Helen B. Warner Prize (2007) Harvard Book Prize in Astronomy (2004) NSERC Science and Technology Fellowship (1990–1994)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy, Planetary science
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007–) Carnegie Institution of Washington (2002–2006) Institute for Advanced Study (1999–2002)
Thesis	Extrasolar giant planets under strong stellar irradiation (1999)
Doctoral advisor	Dimitar Sasselov[3][4]
Website	seagerexoplanets.mit.edu

External video
Sara Seager, “The search for planets beyond our solar system”, TED2015
“Space Experts Discuss the Search for Life in the Universe at NASA”, NASA 2014
“Sara Seager ”, Origins 2011

Background

Seager was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is Jewish.[2][12][13] Her father, David Seager, who lost his hair when he was 19 years old, was a pioneer and one of the world's leaders in hair transplantation and the founder of the Seager Hair Transplant Center in Toronto.[14][15]

She earned her BSc degree in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Toronto in 1994, assisted by a NSERC University Undergraduate Student Research Award, and a PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1999. Her doctoral thesis developed theoretical models of atmospheres on extrasolar planets and was supervised by Dimitar Sasselov.[3][4][16]

She held a postdoctoral research fellow position at the Institute for Advanced Study between 1999 and 2002 and a senior research staff member at the Carnegie Institution of Washington until 2006. She joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2007 as an associate professor in both physics and planetary science, was granted tenure in July 2007,[17] and was elevated to full professor in July 2010.[18] She currently holds the "Class of 1941" chair.[1]

She was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.[19]

She is married to Charles Darrow and they have two sons from her first marriage. Her first spouse, Michael Wevrick, died of cancer in 2011.[20][21]

Academic research

Seager's research has been primarily directed toward the discovery and analysis of exoplanets; in particular her work is centered around ostensibly rare earth analogs, leading NASA to dub her "an astronomical Indiana Jones."[22] Seager used the term "gas dwarf" for a high-mass super-Earth-type planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium in an animation of one model of the exoplanet Gliese 581c. The term "gas dwarf" has also been used to refer to planets smaller than gas giants, with thick hydrogen and helium atmospheres.[23][24] In years since 2020, Sara has been focusing on work related to Venus, with the potential discovery of phosphine, a biosignature gas, in the upper atmosphere.[25]

Seager equation

Seager developed a parallel version of the Drake equation to estimate the number of habitable planets in the Galaxy.[26] Instead of aliens with radio technology, Seager has revised the Drake equation to focus on simply the presence of any alien life detectable from Earth. The equation focuses on the search for planets with biosignature gases, gases produced by life that can accumulate in a planet atmosphere to levels that can be detected with remote space telescopes.[26]

${\displaystyle N=N^{*}F_{\text{Q}}F_{\text{HZ}}F_{\text{O}}F_{\text{L}}F_{\text{S}}}$

where:

• N = the number of planets with detectable signs of life
• N* = the number of stars observed
• F_Q = the fraction of stars that are quiet
• F_HZ = the fraction of stars with rocky planets in the habitable zone
• F_O = the fraction of stars with observable planets
• F_L = the fraction of planets that have life
• F_S = the fraction of life forms that produce planetary atmospheres with one or more detectable signature gases

Honors and awards

Seager was awarded the 2012 Sackler Prize for "analysis of the atmospheres and internal compositions of extra-solar planets,"[27] the Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 2007 for developing "fundamental techniques for understanding, analyzing, and finding the atmospheres of extrasolar planets,"[28] and the 2004 Harvard Book Prize in Astronomy.[29] She was appointed as a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012 and elected to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada as an honorary member in 2013.[1] In September 2013 she became a MacArthur Fellow.[30] She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.[31] She was the Elizabeth R. Laird Lecturer at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2018.[32] On 19 August 2020 Seager appeared on the Lex Fridman Podcast (#116).[33]

In 2020, she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada.[34] She won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Science and Technology Prize for The Smallest Lights in the Universe.[35]

Publications

Books

• Deming, Drake; Seager, Sara (2003). Deming, Drake; Seager, Sara (eds.). Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets. ASP Conference Proceedings (Volume 294). Vol. 294. San Francisco. Bibcode:2003ASPC..294.....D. ISBN 1-58381-141-9.
• Seager, Sara (2010). Exoplanet Atmospheres: Physical Processes. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400835300.
• Seager, Sara (2010). Exoplanets. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-2945-2.
• Seager, Sara (2020). The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir. Crown. ISBN 978-0-5255-7625-9.

Journal articles

• Seager, S.; Sasselov, D. D. (2000). "Theoretical Transmission Spectra during Extrasolar Giant Planet Transits". The Astrophysical Journal. 537 (2): 916–921. arXiv:astro-ph/9912241. Bibcode:2000ApJ...537..916S. doi:10.1086/309088. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 15900986.
• Seager, S.; Mallen‐Ornelas, G. (2003). "A Unique Solution of Planet and Star Parameters from an Extrasolar Planet Transit Light Curve". The Astrophysical Journal. 585 (2): 1038–1055. arXiv:astro-ph/0206228. Bibcode:2003ApJ...585.1038S. doi:10.1086/346105. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 14274640.
• Benjamin, Robert A.; Churchwell, E.; Babler, Brian L.; Bania, T. M.; Clemens, Dan P.; Cohen, Martin; Dickey, John M.; Indebetouw, Rémy; Jackson, James M.; Kobulnicky, Henry A.; Lazarian, Alex; Marston, A. P.; Mathis, John S.; Meade, Marilyn R.; Seager, Sara; Stolovy, S. R.; Watson, C.; Whitney, Barbara A.; Wolff, Michael J.; Wolfire, Mark G. (2003). "GLIMPSE. I. AnSIRTFLegacy Project to Map the Inner Galaxy". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 115 (810): 953–964. arXiv:astro-ph/0306274. Bibcode:2003PASP..115..953B. doi:10.1086/376696. ISSN 0004-6280. S2CID 119510724.
• Deming, Drake; Seager, Sara; Richardson, L. Jeremy; Harrington, Joseph (2005). "Infrared radiation from an extrasolar planet". Nature. 434 (7034): 740–743. arXiv:astro-ph/0503554. Bibcode:2005Natur.434..740D. doi:10.1038/nature03507. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 15785769. S2CID 4404769.
• Borucki, WJ; et al. (2010). "Kepler Planet-Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results" (PDF). Science. 327 (5968): 977–980. Bibcode:2010Sci...327..977B. doi:10.1126/science.1185402. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 20056856. S2CID 22858074.
• Borucki, William J.; Koch, David G.; Basri, Gibor; Batalha, Natalie; Brown, Timothy M.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Caldwell, Douglas; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen; Cochran, William D.; Devore, Edna; Dunham, Edward W.; Gautier, Thomas N.; Geary, John C.; Gilliland, Ronald; Gould, Alan; Howell, Steve B.; Jenkins, Jon M.; Latham, David W.; Lissauer, Jack J.; Marcy, Geoffrey W.; Rowe, Jason; Sasselov, Dimitar; Boss, Alan; Charbonneau, David; Ciardi, David; Doyle, Laurance; Dupree, Andrea K.; Ford, Eric B.; Fortney, Jonathan; et al. (2011). "Characteristics of Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler, II: Analysis of the First Four Months of Data". The Astrophysical Journal. 736 (1): 19. arXiv:1102.0541. Bibcode:2011ApJ...736...19B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/736/1/19. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 15233153.

See also

• List of women in leadership positions on astronomical instrumentation projects

References

External links

• MIT Home page Archived 6 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• Thirteen.org
• Sara Seager at TED

На других языках

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[de] Sara Seager

Sara Seager (* 21. Juli 1971 in Toronto, Kanada) ist eine kanadisch-amerikanische Astrophysikerin, die sich mit Exoplaneten und ihren Atmosphären befasst.

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- [en] Sara Seager

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[es] Sara Seager

Sara Seager (Toronto, 21 de julio de 1971) es una astrónoma canadiense[1] y científica planetaria. Es profesora en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts y es conocida por sus trabajos sobre planetas extrasolares y sus atmósferas. Es autora de dos libros de texto en estas materias,[2][3] y ha sido reconocida por su investigación por Popular Science,[4] Discover Magazine,[5] Nature,[6] y TIME Magazine.[7] Seager recibió una beca MacArthur en 2013 por sus trabajos teóricos en la detección de señales químicas en atmósferas de exoplanetas y desarrollo de observatorios de bajo coste para la observación de tránsitos planetarios.[8]

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[it] Sara Seager

Sara Seager (Toronto, 21 luglio 1971) è un'astronoma canadese naturalizzata statunitense[1][2]. È docente presso il Massachusetts Institute of Technology ed è nota per il suo lavoro sui pianeti extrasolari e le loro atmosfere. È autrice di due libri di testo al riguardo[3][4] ed è stata riconosciuta per le sue ricerche da Popular Science,[5] Discover Magazine,[6] Nature,[7] e TIME Magazine.[8] Seager è stata inserita nella MacArthur Fellowship nel 2013 citando il suo lavoro teorico sulla rilevazione di tracce chimiche su atmosfere di esopianeti e lo sviluppo di osservatori spaziali a basso costo per osservare i transiti planetari.[9]

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