One of the technologies that could help researchers like Seager achieve their goal is a seemingly crazy flower-shaped contraption called Starshade. It’s a sort of giant space parasol designed to block light from a star, allowing a telescope to avoid the star's glare and peer into the planets in orbit – and, possibly, reveal signs of alien life.
“If we want to find a true Earth twin in the near future – like in the next decade or two – then yes, we definitely need to do the Starshade,” says Seager, who is based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).