Alien Earths

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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. The question should have an obvious answer: yes or no. But once you try to find life elsewhere, you realize 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 built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to create a uniquely specialized toolkit to find life on faraway worlds. In Alien Earths, she demonstrates how we can use our homeworld as a Rosetta Stone, creatively analyzing 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.

We live in an incredible new epoch of exploration. As our witty and knowledgeable tour guide, Professor 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?

©2024 Lisa Kaltenegger (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Lisa Kaltenegger is an enthusiastic guide to the search for life beyond our planet u2014 and the new technologies that could help it succeed ... [the] director of Cornellu2019s Carl Sagan Institute, stands out from the crowd of authors as one of the worldu2019s leading practitioners of astrobiology, with extensive personal involvement in the field. She writes with exemplary clarity about the remarkable diversity of the thousands of planets already identified beyond our solar system u2014 and explains how we could detect clear signs of biology in outer space from the vast influx of data provided by a new generation of ultra-powerful telescopes over the next few years ... the tone of Alien Earths is overwhelmingly positive, as Kaltenegger rejoices in her u201cadventure to find life in the cosmosu201d and invites readers to share her excitement for the search, without getting carried away by u201cwild claimsu201d with insufficient evidence ... she writes.u201cThe most exciting phase is about to begin.u201d
Financial Times
Every other day we discover a new planet. How long before we find one that can sustain intelligent life? ... As Lisa Kaltenegger explains in her horizon-expanding new book, Alien Earths, this observation altered our perception of the universe ... And of course, if we can observe other planets, they can watch us
The Times
Have dinosaurs evolved on other worlds? Could we spot a planet of glowing organisms? What nearby star systems are positioned to observe Earth passing in front of the sun? These are just a few of the questions that Lisa Kaltenegger has joyfully tackled. As the founding director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, she has pioneered interdisciplinary work on the origins of life on Earth and the hunt for signs of life, or biosignatures, elsewhere in the universe. Alien Earths ... chronicles her insights and adventures spanning an idyllic childhood in Austria to her Cornell office, which previously belonged to the astronomer Carl Sagan
New York Times
E.T. is waiting to be found. And what's the best way to find life as we know it? Just ask Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute. She explains the latest methods (such as observing Earth from space to see what we can deduce about it), the power of the James Webb Telescope and the interdisciplinary team developing the tools we need to search for planets like our own.
Parade.com
an authoritative and enjoyable read
Nature
a superb testament to the scientific virtue of curious wonder
Wall Street Journal
In Kalteneggeru2019s exhilarating exploration of the state of the Earth-hunting art, she welcomes us into the latest strategies for finding life at interstellar distances. Kaltenegger is that precious rarity, a leading scientist with an infectious passion for her subject and the talent to connect. Read this book and then gaze up at the night sky to find the stars sparkling even brighter with possibility.
Ann Druyan, co-creator of Contact, co-writer COSMOS
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, author of Infinite Powers
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
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

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