Searching for Life in the Galaxy: How to find planets outside our solar system

The video explores the search for life beyond Earth, focusing on detecting planets around distant stars. It discusses the methods used to identify planets, such as observing the distortion in stellar disks and the wobble method, which detects shifts in a star's position caused by orbiting planets. The video explains that planet formation is a natural byproduct of star formation, as seen in regions like the Orion Nebula. It highlights the limitations of current methods, which primarily detect large planets, and introduces future technologies like the Terrestrial Planet Finder, designed to identify smaller, Earth-like planets in habitable zones where life might exist.

What challenges do scientists face when searching for smaller planets like Earth?

What advancements does the terrestrial planet Finder bring to the search for habitable worlds?