When Ethan Kruse was an undergraduate, his friends noticed that as soon as he walked outside, his eyes would naturally drift up – to the sky and the stars. Now, he’s a sixth-year Ph.D. student in Astronomy using the eclipse method to discover new planets. While the upcoming “Great American Eclipse” on Aug. 21 isn’t directly relevant to his research, for many of his colleagues it will be “the chance of a decade – or even a century – to do some really cool science,” science that’s “about answering some of the fundamental questions that humans have been asking for forever. Where did we come from, are we alone in the universe, and what’s in store for the future? The more we understand how planets form in general, the more we can understand about our own earth and solar system, and how it fits into the bigger picture.”