--- title: How to Hunt for New Earths | TIME description: At the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, planet hunters focus their powerful telescope to search for earth-like exoplanets. canonical: https://time.com/video/HM12kMGN/ og:title: How to Hunt for New Earths og:description: At the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, planet hunters focus their powerful telescope to search for earth-like exoplanets. og:url: https://time.com/video/HM12kMGN/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/HM12kMGN/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Hunt for New Earths twitter:description: At the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, planet hunters focus their powerful telescope to search for earth-like exoplanets. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/HM12kMGN/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How to Hunt for New Earths > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How to Hunt for New Earths [Watch (HLS stream): How to Hunt for New Earths](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/HM12kMGN.m3u8) (5:05)  _Published 2013-04-18. At the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, planet hunters focus their powerful telescope to search for earth-like exoplanets._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:32 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [How Telescopes Detect Exoplanets](/video/mcUahEWN/) ### How Telescopes Detect Exoplanets [Earth-like Planets Discovered](/video/2aIiM1Sp/) ### Earth-like Planets Discovered [New Earth-like Planets Discovered By NASA's Kepler Telescope](/video/fCApPc72/) ### New Earth-like Planets Discovered By NASA's Kepler Telescope --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] They are among the most fundamental questions astronomers ask. Are there other planets like Earth in the Universe? Is there life elsewhere? Are we alone? The [ UNKNOWN ] is the, is the astronomer's dream place. You find yourself next to the best and biggest telescopes on Earth. It's a magnificent feeling and at the same time very humbling. [ UNKNOWN ] is an associate astronomer at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. He is also, a planet hunter. Being an astronomer is not a nine to five job, it's a lifestyle. You got into this business because you are interested into solving some mystery of the universe. And the universe has so many mysteries and some of them are so deep that you cannot just worry about it 9 to 5. It becomes an obsession, it occupies your head and it never goes away. Nader has an amazing job description, specializing in celestial mechanics, and planetary dynamics. Because planet hunters from the beginning were looking for something similar to our solar system. They were focusing their search on finding planets around other stars, and when they found those planets, to separate them from our solar system, they call it Extraplanet around solar type of stars, and then develop into extrasolar planets. Like Earth, if an extrasolar planet orbits within a certain distance from its star, that zone is called the habitable zone. The reason that we are interested to find Earth- like planets in the habitable zone, is because we are interested in finding planets that are habitable like our Earth. We determine whether the planet exists or not, and what is the distance to the center of the star. And the amount of radiation that it gets, whether that is enough for the planet to develop liquid waters on its surface. Of course, the goal in future is to identify, to look at this candidates and to identify the bio signatures to see whether they have. [ MUSIC ] Oxygen in the atmospheres. Whether they have land, whether they have water. Whether there's ozone in the atmospheres. And and any signature of life that can exist whether there is veg, vegetation. I identify those. Currently, there are 861 confirmed extra- solar planets. But finding these planets is not easy. For every observation, it takes two groups of people in two different locations on the island. One team is at the Keck headquarters in Waimea, and the other, at the Keck telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea. It might be imagined that we go up to the summit and that we sit behind telescopes look through the eyepiece and find the planet. Basically it doesn't work that way. We don't go to the summit, we go to Keck headquarters in Wimea. A very nice place. We sit in an observer room and we are in continuous contact with support astronomers with actually the summit, and runs the telescope for us. But what I have to say is that it's not like you put the telescope towards the star and then you say, " Oh wow, I found a planet ." The finding is actually when we process the data. Then we get to a point after many years of accumulating data, when we get to a point that we see our models have converged into some sort of finding or discovery that is reliable, that is when we have discovered something. When preparing for an observation, astronomers calculate which stars will be visible at that time of year. They make sure to gather data on as many stars as possible, in the allotted time. More than half of the currently known extra solar planets have been found using the Kec telescopes. Telescopes don't stop. They work all year long. as, as soon as the sun goes down and until the sun comes up, 365 days a year. And all the crew and all the observers. All together work to make all those astonishing discoveries. Big telescopes measure incredibly tiny amounts of light from space. But with atmospheric interference, computer and mechanical error, it can take as many as 30 observations and many years to confirm the existence of an extra- solar planet. Keck is the biggest fittable telescope in infrared and visible in the world. Because of that, getting time on Keck is extremely difficult and competitive. My program has been getting something around 3 or 4 nights a year. With over 2300 more planetary candidates to confirm, astronomers will be busy in the future. But [ UNKNOWN ] isn't deterred by the work that lies ahead. You find yourself being attracted to that type of lifestyle. Being able to carry one or two puzzle for rest of your life. Deal with it, try to solve that. And then, when you solve it, or you contribute to a solution. Then you satisfy of your work. That's why I'm in this business. [ LAUGH ] I've been doing this for. Almost 30 years. 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