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Sarah Peacock Surveys Stellar Radiation to Hunt for Habitable Worlds


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Knowing whether or not a planet elsewhere in the galaxy could potentially be habitable requires knowing a lot about that planet’s sun. Sarah Peacock relies on computer models to assess stars’ radiation, which can have a major influence on whether or not one of these exoplanets has breathable atmosphere.

Name: Sarah Peacock

Title: Assistant Research Scientist

Formal Job Classification: Astrophysicist

Organization: Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, Astrophysics Division, Science Directorate (Code 667)

Sarah Peacock stands next to the worm logo at NASA Headquarters.
Sarah Peacock is a research scientist with the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Courtesy of Sarah Peacock

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?

My overarching research goal is to find habitable planets in other solar systems. To do this, I study the high-energy radiation that specific stars produce to help determine if life can exist on any earthlike planets that orbit them.

What is your educational background?

In 2013, I received a Bachelor of Arts in astrophysics from the University of Virginia. I received both my master’s and doctorate degrees from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona in 2016 and 2019, respectively.

What drew you to study the stars?

In high school, I took an astronomy class. We had a planetarium in our school and I had a wonderful teacher who inspired me to fall in love with the stars. She also showed us how many of the Harry Potter characters are drawn from the constellations and that spoke to my heart because I am a Harry Potter fan!

How did you come to Goddard?

I started at Goddard as a NASA post-doctoral fellow in July 2020, but I first saw the center the day before Goddard shut down due to COVID.

How does high-energy radiation show you what planets outside our solar system might be habitable?

High-energy radiation can cause a planet to lose its atmosphere. If a planet is exposed to too much high-energy radiation, the atmosphere can be blown off, and if there is no atmosphere, then there is nothing for life as we know it to breathe.

We cannot directly measure the specific radiation that I study, so we have to model it. The universe has so many stars, and almost all stars host a planet. There are approximately 5,500 confirmed exoplanets so far, with an additional 7,500 unconfirmed exoplanets.

I help identify systems that either have too much radiation, so planets in the habitable zone (the region around a star where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface) are probably lifeless, or systems that have radiation levels that are safer. Ultimately, my research helps narrow down the most likely systems to host planets that should have stable atmospheres.

Sarah Peacock stands with her arms out with two posters about the Sun behind her.
Sarah Peacock research goal is to find habitable planets in other solar systems.
Courtesy of Sarah Peacock

Where does your data come from?

I predominately use data from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the now-retired spacecraft GALEX. My work itself is more theory-focused though: I create a modeled stellar spectrum across all wavelengths and use observations to validate my modeling.

What other areas of research are you involved in?

I am working with a team analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope to see if earthlike planets around M-type stars (a star that is cooler and smaller than the Sun) have atmospheres and, if so, what the composition of those atmospheres is. An exciting result from this work is that we may have detected water in the atmosphere of a rocky planet for the first time ever. However, we cannot yet distinguish with our current observations if that water comes from the planet or from spots on the star (starspots on this host star are cold enough for water to exist in gas form).

I am also helping manage a NASA Innovative Advance Concept (NIAC) study led by my mentor, Ken Carpenter, to work on the Artemis Enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI). If selected for further development, this imager would be an ultraviolet/optical interferometer located on the South Pole of the Moon. With this telescope, we would be able to map the surface of stars, image accretion disks, and image the centers of Active Galactic Nuclei.

As a relatively new employee to Goddard, what have been your first impressions?

Everyone who I have met, especially those in my lab, are incredibly friendly and welcoming. Starting during the pandemic, I was worried about feeling isolated, but instead, I was blown away by how many folks in my lab reached out to set up calls to introduce themselves and suggest opportunities for collaboration. It made me feel welcome.

Who is your mentor and what did your mentor advise you?

Ken Carpenter is my mentor. He encourages me to pursue my aspirations. He supports letting me chart my own path and being exposed to many different areas of research. I thank Ken for his support and encouragement and for including me on his projects.

Sarah Peacock hugs a white dog in the snow.
“Everyone who I have met, especially those in my lab, are incredibly friendly and welcoming.”
Courtesy of Sarah Peacock

What do you do for fun?

I am a new mom, so my usual hobbies are on pause! Right now, fun is taking care of my baby and introducing life experiences to him.

As a recently selected member of the Executive Committee for NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG), what are your responsibilities?

The NASA ExoPAG is responsible for soliciting and coordinating scientific community input into the development and execution of NASA’s exoplanet exploration program. We solicit opinions and advice from any scientist who studies exoplanets. We are a bridge between NASA’s exoplanet scientists and NASA Headquarters in Washington.

What is a fun fact about yourself?

I got married the same day I defended my Ph.D. I had my defense in the morning and got married in the afternoon at the courthouse.

Who is your favorite author?

I love to read; I always have three books going. My favorite author is Louise Penny, who writes mysteries, but I read all genres. Right now, I am reading a biography about Marjorie Merriweather Post.

What is your favorite quote?

“The most that can be expected from any model is that it can supply a useful approximation to reality: All models are wrong; some models are useful.” —Box and Draper 1987

By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

A banner graphic with a group of people smiling and the text "Conversations with Goddard" on the right. The people represent many genders, ethnicities, and ages, and all pose in front of a soft blue background image of space and stars.

Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.

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Last Updated
Dec 10, 2024

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      Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Contact Media Laura Betz
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
      Greenbelt, Maryland
      laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
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      Space Telescope Science Institute
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      Details
      Last Updated Sep 08, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Contact Media Laura Betz
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
      Greenbelt, Maryland
      laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
      Leah Ramsay
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      Similarly, star spots are cool, dark, temporary patches on a stellar surface whose sizes and numbers change over time. Their variability impacts what astronomers can learn about transiting planets.
      Scientists have previously analyzed transit light curves from exoplanets and their host stars to look at the smaller dips and peaks. This helps determine the host star’s properties, such as its overall level of spottiness, inclination angle of the planet’s orbit, the tilt of the star’s spin compared to our line of sight, and other factors. Sagynbayeva’s model uses light curves that include not only transit information, but also the rotation of the star itself to provide even more detailed information about these stellar properties.
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      This artist’s concept illustrates the varying brightness of star with a transiting planet and several star spots. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center “Knowing more about the star in turn helps us learn even more about the planet, like a feedback loop,” said co-author Brett Morris, a senior software engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “For example, at cool enough temperatures, stars can have water vapor in their atmospheres. If we want to look for water in the atmospheres of planets around those stars — a key indicator of habitability — we better be very sure that we’re not confusing the two.”
      To test their model, Sagynbayeva and her team looked at transits from a planet called TOI 3884 b, located around 141 light-years away in the northern constellation Virgo.
      Discovered by TESS in 2022, astronomers think the planet is a gas giant about five times bigger than Earth and 32 times its mass.
      The StarryStarryProcess analysis suggests that the planet’s cool, dim star — called TOI 3384 — has concentrations of spots at its north pole, which also tips toward Earth so that the planet passes over the pole from our perspective.
      Currently, the only available data sets that can be fit by Sagynbayeva’s model are in visible light, which excludes infrared observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. But NASA’s upcoming Pandora mission will benefit from tools like this one. Pandora, a small satellite developed through NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers Program, will study the atmospheres of exoplanets and the activity of their host stars with long-duration multiwavelength observations. The Pandora mission’s goal is to determine how the properties of a star’s light differs when it passes through a planet’s atmosphere so scientists can better measure those atmospheres using Webb and other missions.
      “The TESS satellite has discovered thousands of planets since it launched in 2018,” said Allison Youngblood, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “While Pandora will study about 20 worlds, it will advance our ability to pick out which signals come from stars and which come from planets. The more we understand the individual parts of a planetary system, the better we understand the whole — and our own.”
      Facebook logo @NASAUniverse @NASAUniverse Instagram logo @NASAUniverse By Jeanette Kazmierczak
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      Media Contact:
      Alise Fisher
      202-358-2546
      alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
      NASA Headquarters, Washington
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      Last Updated Aug 25, 2025 Related Terms
      Astrophysics Exoplanet Atmosphere Exoplanets Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center Kepler / K2 Stars TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) The Universe View the full article
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