Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos

by Lisa Kaltenegger

For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we're alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realise it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life?

As founding director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute, astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger has built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to create a specialised toolkit to find life on faraway worlds. In Alien Earths, she demonstrates how we can use our homeworld as a Rosetta Stone, creatively analysing Earth's history and its astonishing biosphere to inform this search. With infectious enthusiasm, she takes us on an eye-opening journey to the most unusual exoplanets that have shaken our worldview - planets covered in oceans of lava, lonely wanderers lost in space, and others with more than one sun in their sky! And the best contenders for Alien Earths. We also see the imagined worlds of science fiction and how close they come to reality.

With the James Webb Space Telescope and Dr. Kaltenegger’s pioneering work, she shows that we live in an incredible new epoch of exploration. As our witty and knowledgeable tour guide, Dr. Kaltenegger shows how we discover not merely new continents, like the explorers of old, but whole new worlds circling other stars and how we could spot life there. Worlds from where aliens may even be gazing back at us. What if we're not alone?

• ISBN10: 1250283639
• ISBN13: 9781250283634
• Publish Date: 13 May 2024 (first published 16 April 2024)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: http://melia.co.uk/page/detail/?k=9781250283634

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Solid Examination of The Field Of Planet Hunting. This is a solid look at how scientists find extra-solar planets and work to determine what they may be like - compositionally, temperature, whether life (as we understand it) may be possible, etc. Written for a general audience by a US-based Austrian native scientist working at the Carl Sagan Institute, the author clearly knows her stuff, but perhaps the English can be a touch stilted at times. It wasn't enough to distract from the book for me, but there absolutely were a few "huh, weird phrasing" moments. Which happens even with fully native English speakers even in the same country - I'm sure there are Americans reading this review who will question even my own phrasing, and I'm a son of the Southern US to the tune that parts of my family have been on the North American continent since the second generation of Europeans to get here at all.

 

Overall truly a fascinating book, and Kaltengger's own experiments sound quite fun and interesting to boot. The only flaw I noticed here was such a small bibliography, which is where the star deduction comes into play. Still, this is ultimately a solidly written depiction of a truly fascinating part of interplanetary science. Very much recommended.