Visualizing Alien Worlds

Chapter 3 leaves the solar system and considers the work of scientists, primarily at MIT, who are looking for exoplanets. Because these planets are, essentially, invisible, pioneers of this emerging field experiment with ways to portray not only the existence of a planet but also what it might be like to stand on its surface. Learning how to see an exoplanet in the abstract data is a lesson in world building that professor Sara Seager sought to teach her graduate and undergraduate students.