One of the things you hear about space exploration is that if humans aren’t involved — that is, being hurled into orbit– no one’s going to pay much attention. Robots are one thing, astronauts are another. There may be some truth to this. But I think exoplanets — planets that orbit stars outside our own solar system– are soon going to prove this maxim wrong. No one is traveling to extra-solar planets any time soon, (especially Kepler-10b, a planet so close to its sun that its surface is a glurping ocean of molten lava) but they are the coolest thing coming out space science these days – an ever expanding menagerie of the spherically weird and wonderful. Scientists have identified almost 4000 exoplanets so far and — with powerful new telescopes about to come on line — they’re just getting started.

Today I speak with exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford, Giaconni Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Wakeford has also served as a NASA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and as a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. She is also a host of the podcast, Exocast, along with co-hosts (and exoplanet scientists) Hugh Osborn and Andrew Rushby.

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