Our ability to probe the cosmos, particularly for planets around other stars, is accelerating at an incredible rate. As I have mentioned before, the Kepler space telescope has given us a view into the cosmos that will change our view of the universe forever. Recently, further advancements by Project 1640, an effort to directly observe the spectra of distant worlds, bring the real possibility of detecting an Earth like planet to within our grasp. Continue reading “Fingerprinting Exoplanets by Direct Observation”