But astrophysicist Sara Seager of MIT may be the first recipient recognized for her work in searching for extraterrestrial life.

But before you bring out the tinfoil hats and grainy UFO videos, realize Seager isn't on that kind of mission.

In fact, her goal sounds deceptively simple: "We're looking for an Earth twin."

Finding an Earth 2.0 is possible, but it will take a lot of exoplanets to get there.

"Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the sun," Seager explained. "I study exoplanet atmospheres to model how they will look and try to interpret data to understand these atmospheres."

The search for exoplanets has ramped up recently, although the search for them has been going on for years. The