a warming risks and celestial surprise. astronomers discover six planets orbiting a sun. is this another solar system hospitable to human like

lifeforms? but first, sandra day o'connor remembered the first female us supreme court justice in history has passed away. after shattering the glass ceiling and cementing her legacy, you're watching getting answers. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. justice sandra day o'connor died in arizona this morning at the age of 93, having suffered from a respiratory illness and advanced dementia. a stanford grad and former san mateo county deputy county attorney, she. was known as a pragmatist who sought to keep society stable. >> well, we wish we could go through life not deciding cases that cause anguish among a wide percentage of our citizens. but that isn't always going to be. >> joining us live now is constitutional expert professor at uc college of the law san francisco, formerly uc hastings, rory little rory, thank you so much for joining us today.

>> well, thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. although it's a sad day for justice o'connor's passing, but her memory is going to be quite historic. and so it's nice that we get to honor her. >> yeah, especially sad for those who knew her. and i understand you knew her in what capacity? >> well, i clerked at the supreme court back in the mid 80s, 1980s when she was there. and i worked with her chambers. two of my best friends were actually law clerks there. and then i when i was the chief of the appellate section of the us attorney's office here in san francisco, she was the circuit justice for the ninth circuit. so we would see each other every year at the judicial conference, we exchanged correspondence over the years. i even had an oral argument in front of her after she retired as a justice and she was sitting on the ninth circuit by designation often. so we had we had quite a long association. >> so if you were to use three adjectives to describe her, what would they be?

>> well, i think everybody that knows her personally would say she was a kind and generous person. i also think she was quite confident in her talents. she was a victim of gender stereotypes and she couldn't get a job out of law school, even though she was second in her class at stanford. she went on to be the majority leader of the arizona state legislature, and she was confident, even though she was picked in some sense out of obscurity from the court of appeals in arizona to be on the supreme court. so kind, a kind and confident and path breaking. thank you. >> path breaking is a hyphenated word, but certainly works. thank you, rory. look you mentioned her stanford years. yes. she went to undergrad there and law school and. brilliant. i think she started undergrad at 16. so, you know, at least two years earlier than other people. well, but like you said, there was gender discrimination then. so why why was it that you think she was the first she was the one who broke the glass ceiling?

what were the characteristics and personalities that enabled her to be that someone? >> well, there's a couple of factors. so first, ronald reagan, when he was running for president, said, i will appoint the first woman to the supreme court. so she was immediately on the screen, if you will. she was known as a forceful republican conservative republican at the time. today, she looks to be quite moderate and it didn't hurt that she was a classmate of william rehnquist, who went on to be the chief justice and had actually dated her briefly in law school. and so they knew who she was, personal. >> she i think i heard he proposed to her and she said no. >> right. she could have been sandra day rehnquist could have been. >> could have been. she she she married somebody that they she didn't look back. and her husband was a wonderful person as well. and her family, of course, is quite a close knit family. and they still have a ranch in arizona. um, and she

she let me just say in personal interviews with the president, i am sure was impressive because she not only is a brilliant thinker, but she's a careful, considerate thinker. she is not a rush to judgment person. she's not she was not ideologically polarized in any way. she was conservative. but she she was she fit what ronald reagan was looking for. >> can we talk about that, where she started as a conservative, but eventually as the court shifted, she sort of became a moderate, centrist voice. talk about that evolution. >> well, you know, those words have different meanings today than they had then. but, you know, she she was a she favored a right to life. but when it came to abolishing a right to abortion, she refused on multiple occasions to overrule roe versus wade. it was her vote in 1993 that cemented roe versus wade as a governing precedent for another 30 years on affirmative action. she again

shared a conservative view, but she did not think it was unconstitutional to give a bump to someone for their racial identity, particularly if they had that group had been a victim of discrimination in the past. she wrote an opinion in adarand, which has now been overruled. but so in those two areas, she people knew what her views were when she was appointed. yeah, it is. the court that changed, not her. >> and i wonder if some of that her openness to abortion and affirmative action, if that had to do with the fact that despite being at the top of her class, she could only get a job as a legal secretary, legal secretary out of stanford law school, and having suffered that gender discrimination action herself, and i wonder about that. but let me just ask you, how do you think she reacted when the court started to tilt to the right? >> well, i'm not sure when you are going to put that date. she sadly has had dementia for the

last 3 or 4 years. and but she was asked at a at a post-retirement meeting, how do you feel about some of your precedents being questioned or even overruled? and she responded by saying, well, how do you think you would feel? she wasn't she wasn't happy about that. but it is it is the way of the law for people to move into the ranks of retirement. and other people take their place. and i think she had a great respect for the rule of law and for the role that law should play in a stable society. i think the polarized nature of our politics today would probably be the most disappointing thing to her. >> yeah. yeah >> she did not use her role to try to change the direction of society or, you know, and i think that is different now. look, she retired and, you know, and that's unusual. i mean, it's a lifetime appointment. but she stepped away 18 years ago to take care of her husband with alzheimer's. and, of course, you said she eventually was diagnosed herself, but in terms of her retirement, talk about how full that was, because we understand and you alluded to

the fact that she didn't just ride off into the sunset. she continued to use her expertise and her cases. >> well, she retired. really. she was still at the top of her game. she served for a quarter century. she she wasn't there just a short time. and when she retired, she made it her sort of campaign, her life's work, as after retirement to push the idea of civic education as something that is vital for the youth of our country. she has a center at arizona, which is a center for the rule of law and civic education. and she traveled the country and she raised a lot of money for this effort. and she was certainly quite a valued speaker for a good gosh. 15 years after she retired. yeah. and her law clerks are an incredibly influential bunch of people, all on their own. and they would all say to a person that they have great admiration and love for justice o'connor yeah, incredible. >> and as you mentioned earlier,

she heard cases on a fill in basis for the lower federal courts, including the ninth circuit based here in san francisco. but you just mentioned how her clerks have gone on to great things. that speaks to her mentorship. can you talk about her legacy as a mentor, especially one to women in law? >> well, she certainly was a mentor to her, her clerks and to other people. um, i would say she was not a pushy person. she wouldn't call people up and say, you've got to hire this person. she was much more of a mentor in the sense of having conversations and she would encourage you to go on and do your best and do the right thing and try to stand up for the rule of law and be confident. even if you run into discrimination based on her own experience, she was a mentor really by example rather than by sort of a pushiness. >> all right. well i really appreciate you coming on today, rory little. you see college law of san francisco to remember justice o'connor and take good

care. we'll remember her. >> thank you so much. yeah >> coming up next, we're going to shift gears. the future of our earth is certainly at stake. so what can we expect from the un's high stakes climate change summit? the cop 28, a bay area scientist who's going through the conference, joins us next to talk about expectatis, realities and what's at risk from the state that's already helped millions of people like you get and pay for health insurance. with financial health to lower the cost of health coverage, you could get a quality health plan for less than $10 a month. every plan covers preventive care, doctor visits, emergency care, and more. if you have questions, we're here to help every step of the way. covered california.

this way to health insurance. enroll by december 31 at coveredca.com.

where your happy is everywhere! anywhere! he's “pew-pew! pew-pew!” kinda happy. they're even happy-er. and you?! you're the ha-pee-ist of them all! because this place... has all the happy you never knew could exist. so you're a new kind of happy, every time you visit. welcome to your happiest place on earth! only at the disneyland resort. for a limited time, kids ages 3 through 9 can visit a disneyland resort® theme park for $50 per child with a special 1-day, 1-park ticket. another one in the books. can visit a disneyland resort® theme park for $50 per child but we're just getting started. everything going well? oh yeah. let's take a look at this knee. because it's the work behind the scenes, that truly matters. [ physical therapy staff discusses results ] for your mind. for your body. and for the community. for all that is me,

for all that is you. kaiser permanente.

of astronomy. andrew fraknoi of the usf from institute to explain this discovery of a rare family of six planets. is that what we have? where is this thing? >> well, this is a planet orbiting a star about a hundred light years away. but what's exciting about it is exactly what it says on the screen. or you've heard of synchronized dancing and synchronized swimming. this is synchronized orbiting. >> what does that mean? andrew? >> don't go around in a random way. they're lined up in such a way that their orbits actually connect mathematically, and that's a very rare thing in the universe, are very rare with six planets, ours doesn't do that.

>> we're not synchronized here. >> no, the moon sometimes do a jupiter's moons because jupiter has a strong gravity and they're close to it. jupiter's moons do a synchronized dance, but our planets are all over the map when it comes to our orbits. >> okay, so this one is super far away, right? how was it discovered? >> this is. it's actually for astronomers, not that far away. a hundred light years is what we astronomers consider our neighborhood. okay. but it actually took something like 20 telescopes to pin down the. characteristics. first of all, this is something that our listeners might know is a big discovery in astronomy in general, that we not only know planets orbiting other stars, but we now know hundreds of stars that have more than three planets. the sun has eight. there's another star that has eight. some have seven, some have six. so here's a system of six planets. the details are

hard to pin down. but now that we've used all these different telescopes, we've been able to not just figure out how the planets are moving, but also what they're like. they're bigger than the earth and they're all clustered really close to the star, much closer than any planets in our system. >> so none of these planets are in what we would consider a hospitable to life zone. >> excellent question. yes that's exactly the first thing we ask is could they be habitable if they were at the right temperature with water being possible in liquid form? and. no, no, these are all much too close to the star to be habitable. well, they're interesting, but they're not a place we're likely to find future kgo listeners. >> i see. so we have to kind of keep looking in our milky way galaxy and others maybe. but let me just ask you then, why is it so exciting? because i understand for astronomers, this is kind of like a glimpse into

almost like the past, like understanding how we formed. right. right >> so we think that when stars first make planets, many planets have this kind of synchronize orbiting. that's a sort of a natural way for planets to form. but over millions and billions of years, the planets get out of sync. and so it's very unusual. we think this is more than a billion years old. this star and planet combination. and how they've remained in sync for all this time is an absolute mystery . so if we learn more about how it stays in sync, maybe we can understand better how planets form in sync when they do. >> and ultimately, why is that so important to understand? and why do we need to unravel that mystery other than the fact that we're just all very curious? yes. >> well, also because we formed on a planet and so we think that if we're going to find life out there, we're going to find them

on planets around other stars, as we already know something like 5500 planets orbits, other stars, some are in the habitable zone, as you mentioned. but getting to know these other planets is going to be the clue. the key to finding life elsewhere. and so we're very interested in what systems of planets exist, how they change over time and which of them may someday develop life and even perhaps intelligent life. all right. >> so i'm going to zoom out a little bit from this discovery and talk about where are we with the whole search for intelligent life? any new things to report? andrew >> well, in fact, we see i'm on the board of an organization called the seti institute. root the search for extraterrestrial institute. and just last month we announced that a high tech entrepreneur who passed away left. $200 million to the

institute to speed up the search to allow us to search more stars and more radio and television channels out there to look for life elsewhere. so this is a great time to be interested in the search for what we call technosignature features the signals from possible life out there. stay tuned. >> all right. stay tuned. yeah, well, $200 million, you can do a lot. okay. but for folks who are interested in learning more about the star hd 11 067, where can they go to learn more and get the latest? >> well, there's already a wikipedia entry. even a couple of days after the wikipedia already has an entry. it's hd as you said, hd 110067. just google that most stars don't have names, just catalog numbers. that's why it's so weird. >> oh yeah. andrew fraknoi, always fun talking with you. thank you so much. and folks, you can get our live streaming newscast, breaking news and all that on abc7 news bay

world news tonight with david muir is next. i'll see you at . tonight, a rare moment in american history. republican george santos expel prd congress. a lightning rod for controversy even before being sworn into office. just the sixth congressman ever voted out of the house of representatives. the first in more than two decades. hounded by federal charges, ethics violations and lies about