The biggest red herring in our search for alien life | Sara Seager
April 28, 2026
10,478
402
17
4.00%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Big Think Episodes Around April 28, 2026
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
3:29Now PlayingThe biggest red herring in our search for alien life | Sara Seager
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelThis interview is an episode from The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.
Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ►
Watch all of Seager’s interviews ►
Astrophysicist Sara Seager has redefined how we search for life, shifting the focus from definitive proof to the subtler, messier realm of possibility.
By detecting biosignature gases — molecules that might indicate life in a planet’s atmosphere — her work explores what discovery looks like when certainty isn’t guaranteed. Volcanic gases and unknown chemistry can mimic life’s signals, meaning we may never get a perfect answer.
But Seager sees beauty in that ambiguity. In adapting the famous Drake Equation, she offers a new framework for discovery, one that embraces the “maybes” as part of the scientific process. For the first time in human history, she says, we’re finally in a position to try. And that alone is extraordinary.
Read the video transcript ►
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Sara Seager:
Professor Seager is Director for the MIT-led Venus Morning Star Missions to Venus and lead for Project Starshade. In the past she was Deputy Science Director for the MIT-led NASA mission TESS and PI for the on-orbit JPL/MIT CubeSat ASTERIA.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
Together, let's learn from them.
Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ►
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Well on your favorite platforms:
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.