Seager was born inToronto,Ontario, Canada, and isJewish.[4][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 inhair transplantation and the founder of the Seager Hair Transplant Center in Toronto.[4][14]
Seager's research has been primarily directed toward the discovery and analysis ofexoplanets; in particular her work is centered around ostensibly rareearth analogs, leadingNASA to dub her "an astronomical Indiana Jones."[21] Seager used the term "gas dwarf" for a high-masssuper-Earth-type planet composed mainly ofhydrogen andhelium in an animation of one model of the exoplanetGliese 581c. The term "gas dwarf" has also been used to refer to planets smaller thangas giants, with thick hydrogen and helium atmospheres.[22][23] Together withMarc Kuchner, Seager had predicted the existence ofcarbon planets.[24]
Seager has been the chair of the NASA Science and Technology Definition team for a proposed mission, "Starshade",[25] to launch a free-flyingocculting disk, used to block the light from a distant star in order for a telescope to be able to resolve the (much dimmer) light from an accompanying exoplanet located in the habitable zone of the star.[26]
In years since 2020, Sara has been focusing on work related to Venus, with the potential discovery ofphosphine, abiosignature gas, in the upper atmosphere.[27]
Seager developed a parallel version of theDrake equation to estimate the number of habitable planets in the Galaxy.[28] 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.[28]
where:
N = the number of planets with detectable signs of life
N* = the number of stars observed
FQ = the fraction of stars that are quiet
FHZ = the fraction of stars with rocky planets in the habitable zone
FO = the fraction of stars with observable planets
FL = the fraction of planets that have life
FS = the fraction of life forms that produce planetary atmospheres with one or more detectable signature gases
Seager was the principal investigator of theAsteria (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) spacecraft,[29] a 6-Ucubesat designed to do precisionphotometry to search for extrasolar planets, a collaborative project between MIT and NASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory. ASTERIA was launched into low Earth orbit from theInternational Space Station on 20 November 2017, and successfully operated until its orbital decay on 24 April 2020.
In 2020, Seager led a team proposing a missionVenus Life Finder,[30] a small spacecraft to investigate the possibility of life in the atmosphere of Venus.[31] The mission will be a privately funded spacecraft to be launched byRocket Lab on theElectron rocket[32] with a target launch date in summer 2026.[33]
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.ISBN1-58381-141-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Seager, Sara (2010).Exoplanet Atmospheres: Physical Processes. Princeton University Press.ISBN9781400835300.
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.ISSN0004-637X.S2CID15233153.
^Foss, Kelly (20 September 2018)."Holy Grail".Gazette – Memorial University of Newfoundland.Archived from the original on 7 July 2019. Retrieved7 July 2019.
Sara Seager, “The search for planets beyond our solar system”, TED2015
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