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Narrator: Natalie Batalha, the Project Scientist

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for NASA's Kepler Mission was recently named to

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Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential

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People of 2017.

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The Time 100 annual list was created to honor

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individuals whose work has changed the world,

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or in this case, our place in the universe.

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Thanks to the pioneering work of Natalie and

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the Kepler team, we now know that our galaxy

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contains planets around virtually every star.

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Using a space-based telescope, the Kepler Mission

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measured tiny drops in light intensity that could

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indicate a "transit" or eclipse of a star

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as a planet orbits across its face.

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One of Natalie's many achievements was the

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discovery of Kepler-10b, the first rocky planet

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identified outside of our solar system.

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Since then, Natalie and the Kepler team have

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confirmed hundreds of other Earth-size planets

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as well as thousands of planets

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of all types and sizes.

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She started out as a business major who realized

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that science was her true calling.

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Natalie pursued her graduate studies in California

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and South America, where she was deeply inspired

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by the new perspective of the stars

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in the southern night skies.

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As her career progressed, she became more fixated

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on the question of whether planet Earth is alone

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in the universe...

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or if there might be other rocky worlds

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out there similar to ours.

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In 1999, she contacted researchers at NASA Ames

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to discuss some challenges she anticipated

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with the proposed mission called Kepler.

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Natalie Batalha: When I first heard about this

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idea for detecting Earth-size planets

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I admit I was skeptical.

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At the time, I was working on star spots.

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And I wondered if it would really be possible to

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disentangle the signal from the planet transiting

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in front of the star from the signal

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of the star spot rotating in and out of view.

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Almost immediately the Principal Investigator,

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Bill Borucki, responded to my email.

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So, Bill invited me to come to Ames

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to work on this very issue.

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Narrator: She quickly became a leader within

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the team as the mission progressed.

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Natalie and the Kepler team helped to make one

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ground-breaking discovery after another,

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effectively rewriting every textbook on astronomy.

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Natalie Batalha: I'd like to start by reminding

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you of what Kepler is...

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Narrator: Her abilities as a powerful communicator

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were key to helping share

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the mission's incredible discoveries.

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Natalie Batalha:: One of the main goals of the

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Kepler mission is to determine how common

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planets are in the galaxy.

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That is, planets of different sizes

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and orbital periods.

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The future is filled with promise for great

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research and Kepler's exo-planet survey is going

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to be very important for designing NASA's

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next missions, the missions to find

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evidence of life beyond Earth.

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Narrator: Natalie is working with many teams and

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advisory panels to chart

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the future of astrophysics research.

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Earth is not alone in the universe and with each

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new discovery come many new questions.

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Natalie is working harder than ever