[Astronomy] Why do people study exoplanets?
Something that we've been talking about a little bit at work recently is "why do we study exoplanets?'"It's an interesting question, and one to which different people give different answers. Everyone has their own motivation after all, and it's been fun to hear what people say. Ultimately though I, and apparently several other members of my group, think that many exoplanet researchers are lying to themselves and each other. Not to cause harm or detriment, but because we think that 'admitting' the real reason will make other astronomers sneer at us, or sideline our careers. It's not hard to see how that comes about; there's an attitude in professional astronomy that we should be in it for the love of the job itself, and that we should be heavily invested (often emotionally) in our particular topic. Leaving aside the rather pertinent point that that whilst a postdoc or PhD student that is, to some extent, dictated by what your boss/supervis...