Title
The life of super-Earths : how the hunt for alien worlds and artificial cells will revolutionize life on our planet / Dimitar Sasselov.
ISBN
9780465021932
046502193X
Imprint
New York : Basic Books, c2012.
Language
English
Description
xvi, 202 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Call Number
QH326 .S27 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification
576.8/39
Summary
"In the past year, we have witnessed unprecedented breakthroughs in the seemingly unrelated fields of synthetic biology and exoplanetary astronomy. Just recently, arsenic-based bacteria was discovered in a California lake-both puzzling and electrifying the scientific world. In The Life of Super-Earths, expert astronomer Dimitar Sasselov aims to highlight these groundbreaking findings and explain how what we learn in the laboratory informs our investigation of the universe, and vice versa. The discovery of a New Earth, or other world, may be in our future. But a truly 'alien' life form is more likely to emerge from our planet's natural environment or in a petri dish at a research lab. We may cross a milestone into the era of synthetic biology under the microscope. These breakthroughs will shed new light on our place in the universe and answer the age-old question: Are we alone in the universe? The Life of Super-Earths offers nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of life and its place in the cosmos"--Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-196) and index.
Introduction : The mystery of life
Extrasolar planets at last
The world of planets
Completing the Copernican revolution
Chasing transits
Super-Earth : a new type of planet
Super-Earths : the hardest rocks in the universe
The scale of life
Origins of life : why planets?
Life as a planetary phenomenon
Places we could call home
The passage of time : the universe is young, life is younger
The future of life.
