Overview

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?

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9781250283634

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Reviews

"""An erudite and highly readable inside view of the science and emerging discoveries of this remarkable new era."" --Charles Cockell, author of Taxis from another Planet, Professor of Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh ""In the grand tradition of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, we now have a new tour guide to the cosmos. Professor Lisa Kaltenegger takes us along on the quest to solve one of the greatest mysteries of existence: Are we alone in the universe? In Alien Earths, Kaltenegger--one of the pioneers leading the way--reveals what we've already discovered, and even more breathtakingly, what we might find."" --Steven Strogatz, Professor of Mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Infinite Powers ""Do you want to prepare yourself for the next 'Copernican revolution'? Then read Lisa Kaltenegger's book! Fascinating."" --Michel Mayor, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva ""The odds are overwhelming that something's alive out there. But will we ever see a sign of life on a planet circling a distant star? And, if we do, will we recognize it? This fascinating and tantalizing book points the way to YES."" --Alan Alda ""Effervescent with ideas and edge-of-your-seat discoveries, Alien Earths provides a front-row seat to the astonishing era we live."" --Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology, Columbia University, author of The Zoomable Universe ""Lisa Kaltenegger is an international leader in the discovery and analysis of exoplanets...Moreover, she is a brilliant expositor. I eagerly await what will surely be a riveting book."" --Sir Martin John Rees, Fifteenth Astronomer Royal, bestselling author of If Science is to Save Us"

"""An erudite and highly readable inside view of the science and emerging discoveries of this remarkable new era."" --Charles Cockell, author of Taxis from another Planet, Professor of Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh ""In the grand tradition of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, we now have a new tour guide to the cosmos. Professor Lisa Kaltenegger takes us along on the quest to solve one of the greatest mysteries of existence: Are we alone in the universe? In Alien Earths, Kaltenegger--one of the pioneers leading the way--reveals what we've already discovered, and even more breathtakingly, what we might find."" --Steven Strogatz, Professor of Mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Infinite Powers ""Do you want to prepare yourself for the next 'Copernican revolution'? Then read Lisa Kaltenegger's book! Fascinating."" --Michel Mayor, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva ""The odds are overwhelming that something's alive out there. But will we ever see a sign of life on a planet circling a distant star? And, if we do, will we recognize it? This fascinating and tantalizing book points the way to YES."" --Alan Alda ""Effervescent with ideas and edge-of-your-seat discoveries, Alien Earths provides a front-row seat to the astonishing era we live."" --Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology, Columbia University, author of The Zoomable Universe ""Lisa Kaltenegger is an international leader in the discovery and analysis of exoplanets...Moreover, she is a brilliant expositor. I eagerly await what will surely be a riveting book."" --Sir Martin John Rees, Fifteenth Astronomer Royal, bestselling author of If Science is to Save Us ""An engaging and personal book that couldn't be more up to date. Read Alien Earths, and feel your cosmic perspective shift just a little on its axis."" --Alastair Reynolds, science fiction writer and former ESA scientist"

Author Information

"Lisa Kaltenegger is the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell and Associate Professor in Astronomy. She is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling potential habitable worlds and their detectable spectral fingerprint. Kaltenegger served on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), and on NASA senior review of operating missions. She is a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS Mission as well as the NIRISS instrument on James Webb Space Telescope. Kaltenegger was named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, an Innovator to Watch by TIME Magazine. She appears in the IMAX 3D movie ""The Search for Life in Space"" and speaks frequently, including at Aspen Ideas Festival, TED Youth, World Science Festival and the Kavli Foundation lecture at the Adler Planetarium which was live-streamed to six continents."

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