Strange New Worlds
The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
We are living in an extraordinary age of discovery. After millennia of musings and a century of false claims, our knowledge of other worlds has suddenly exploded. Since 1995, astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting other stars—discoveries that have surprised us and challenged our views many times over. At the crux of the astronomers’ pursuit is one basic question: Is our solar system, with planets in circular orbits, gas giants in the outer realm and at least one warm, wet, rocky world teeming with life, the exception or the norm? It’s an important and timely question for every one of us. Astronomers expect to find alien earths by the dozens within the next few years and to examine them for telltale signs of life before this decade is out. If they succeed, the ramifications for all areas of human thought and endeavour—from religion and philosophy to art and biology—are profound, perhaps revolutionary. What’s at stake is the true measure of our own place in the cosmos.
In Strange New Worlds, renowned astronomer Ray Jayawardhana offers an insider’s look at the cutting-edge science of today’s planet hunters, our prospects for discovering alien life, and the debates and controversies at the forefront of extra-solar planet research.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Popular astrophysicist Jayawardhana (Star Factories) suggests that mankind may be on the brink of a new scientific revolution. In the last two decades, "after millennia of musings and a century of false claims, astronomers have finally found definitive evidence of planets around stars other than the Sun." Within our lifetime, the author argues, scientists may discover the existence of life on one or more of these celestial bodies. He takes the reader on a four-century-long scientific quest to discover our place in the universe, beginning with the Copernican hypothesis and Galileo's discovery of four of Jupiter's moons. More recently, astronomer Debra Fischer's discovery of the existence of three planets orbiting a pair of twin stars widened the field of possibilities. While the criteria for the presence of life are stringent indeed, there are countless new possibilities, and Jayawardhana reviews technological advances from Galileo's primitive telescope to the Hubble, and the development of computerized adaptive optics, that allow today's astronomers to better probe the universe. The author also introduces the new science of astrobiology, which uses spectral analysis to seek evidence of life. An exciting, highly readable glimpse into a discovery that could have broad scientific and cultural implications.
