Meet the woman searching for planet Earth's twin
Munazza Alam didn’t grow up gazing at the stars. But an inspiring teacher and a passion for math led her to dive deep into the hunt for habitable planets.
Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question that often sparks debate. For a young woman named Munazza Alam, it sparked an entire career path.
Alam wasn’t always interested in the cosmos. “Growing up, I was not a space nerd,” she says. There was no telescope in her backyard, and trips to the museum centered on dinosaur exhibits. As a kid, she preferred playing outside and riding around on her bike to gazing at the stars.
But by her freshman year in college, she’d fallen completely under astronomy’s spell. (See the best astronomy photos of 2018.)
Alam, 24, is bright in every sense of the word. She is intelligent and vivacious, and her voice radiates warmth. She can discuss the
