Renowned exoplanet researcher Sara Seager is bringing her quest to seek out one other Earth again house to Canada

Renowned exoplanet researcher Sara Seager is bringing her quest to seek out one other Earth again house to Canada

Nicole Mortillaro | CBC News | Posted: November 12, 2025 9:00 AM | Last Updated: 4 hours in the past

Seager returning to U of T with array of initiatives, together with plan to seek out indicators of life in Venus’s clouds

There’s no place like house. Unless, maybe, your analysis entails discovering a brand new house among the many stars.

But world-renowned exoplanet researcher Sara Seager says she’s excited to be returning to her terrestrial house of Canada, after leaving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to return to her alma mater, the University of Toronto.

Seager’s analysis consists of looking for Earth 2.0 and life past Earth, even in inhospitable atmospheres just like the clouds of Venus.

After about 20 years at MIT, the U of T graduate says the timing was proper for her return to Toronto, the place she grew up. Her return additionally brings world-class analysis by a high scientist to Canada.

“Canada has always welcomed me, like the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. I’ve got a bunch of awards from Canada; I’m often invited just to come back and visit,” Seager mentioned.

“​​So, I’ve kind of had this ongoing relationship.”

Seager will be part of the college’s Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) as professor in September 2026.

She hopes to encourage the subsequent technology of researchers — and he or she’s bringing some unbelievable initiatives together with her.

“All of my projects are coming with me to Canada,” she mentioned. “In addition, I hope to start new things.”

That’s nice information for CITA’s director, Shantanu Basu, the person behind bringing Seager again to Canada.

“I think the visionary leadership that she shows in this field is what draws people in,” Basu mentioned.

“That draws in new people into the field and frankly helps us make the case with the people who fund the science, which is ultimately the public.”

Life on Venus?

One of Seager’s deliberate initiatives is a doozy: Looking for all times within the clouds of Venus.

One mission consists of a balloon that might fly by means of Venus’s clouds and accumulate a pattern from its environment after which return it to Earth.

Search for liveable worlds

When Seager obtained her PhD from Harvard in 1994, just one exoplanet had been found. The second — orbiting a Sun-like star — was found in 1995.

Now, greater than 6,000 exoplanets have been confirmed.

But to date, no Earth-like exoplanet has been found. That’s as a result of they’re tough to detect, being comparatively small and invisible to telescopes as they’d be washed out by the sunshine of their star.

This mission would contain a novel spacecraft with a shade to dam out a star’s gentle, probably making it simpler to detect an Earth-like planet.

For now the mission has been shelved, Seager mentioned, however solely briefly.

U.S. cuts an ‘alternative’ for Canada: CITA

Basu mentioned he had lengthy wished to recruit Sara at CITA.

“We always had this idea she might be, in the far distant future, somebody we might be able to attract and bring back to Canada,” he mentioned.

“[We thought] hey, this could be an opportunity for Canada and Canadian science and research in general,” Basu mentioned.

“So, there was this idea that OK, maybe this is a good time to seek out people in the United States that we’ve always thought we might want to attract … [and] she is one of the most famous Canadian scientists who also happens to work abroad.”

CITA does not but have a concentrate on exoplanet analysis, Basu mentioned, which is why Seager’s arrival is so thrilling.

“Our mission is to attract cutting-edge science and push the frontiers. And so, Sarah, that is the definition of what she does,” Basu mentioned.

“She’s been at the forefront of making predictions about what you would observe in exoplanetary systems and atmospheres.”

Seager’s analysis is not nearly exoplanets. It’s about discovering the precise substances for all times, so there’s additionally lab work concerned.

“[You’re] definitely going to be seeing more exoplanets in Toronto. Let’s just say that,” Seager mentioned of her experiments.

Basu mentioned her interdisciplinary method — “connecting exoplanetary science with organic chemistry and aerosols engineering” — is “very compelling.”

“And that really is also part of CITA’s mission: to do theoretical astrophysics in a way that can make contact with other areas of astronomy and even beyond,” he added.

For now, Seager is busy getting ready to return to the very college whose campus she walked by means of on her strategy to highschool.

“When you’re thinking about a change in life, what better change is there than to go home?” she mentioned.