How do you tell the age of a star that barely seems to age? And could the answer help us find another Earth?
In this episode, I sit down with Professor Marcel Agüeros, astronomer at Columbia University and President of the American Astronomical Society, to explore how the spin and magnetic activity of stars can reveal their ages—and why that matters in the search for life beyond our Solar System.
We also dive into time-domain astronomy, how the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is essentially creating a ten-year movie of the night sky, and why white dwarfs give astronomers a natural laboratory for physics we can’t recreate on Earth.
And then there’s the big question: how close are we to finding Earth 2.0? Professor Agüeros explains why finding an Earth-like planet may be only half the challenge—and why the age and activity of its star could determine whether life ever had a chance to emerge.
We finish with his advice for young people interested in astronomy, why there’s no need to have your entire career mapped out, and what it means to find a community in science that you genuinely want to be part of.