Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Description
"A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. "Richard Powers, whose novels combine the wonders of science with the marvels of art, astonishes us in different ways with each new book." -Heller McAlpin, NPR Books. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
n November 12, 2002, Dr. John Chambers of the NASA Ames - search Center gave a seminar to the Astrobiology Group at the OUniversity of Washington. The audience of about 100 listened with rapt attention as Chambers described results from a computer study of how planetary systems form. The goal of his research was to answer a dec- tively simple question: How often would newly forming planetary systems produce Earth-like planets, given a star the size...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Specialist scientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, but what can they really tell us about how the universe began and how we humans evolved to play such a dominant role on Earth? John Hands's ... ambitious quest is to bring together this scientific knowledge and evaluate without bias or preconception all the theories and evidence about the origin and evolution of matter, life, consciousness, and humankind. This ... book provides...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
James Kasting is Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. He is a renowned expert in planetary atmospheric evolution and is actively involved in the search by NASA for habitable planets outside our solar system. He is the coauthor of the introductory textbook The Earth System.
The amazing science behind the search for Earth-like planets
Ever since Carl Sagan first predicted that extraterrestrial civilizations must...
Author
Language
English
Description
"From a noted Cambridge zoologist, a wildly fun and scientifically sound exploration of what alien life must be like, using universal laws that govern life on Earth and in space. Scientists are confident that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Yet rather than taking a realistic approach to what aliens might be like, we imagine that life on other planets is the stuff of science fiction. The time has come to abandon our fantasies of space invaders...
Author
Series
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
"Astrobiology is an exciting new subject, and one, arguably, more interdisciplinary than any other. Astrobiologists seek to understand the origin and evolution of life on Earth in order to illuminate and guide the search for life on other planets. In this Very Short Introduction, David C. Catling introduces the subject through our understanding of the factors that allowed life to arise and persist on our own planet, and for the signs we are looking...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Viewers of FOX's Cosmos have recognized the author's talent for guiding them through the mysteries of outer space with clarity and enthusiasm. Bringing together more than forty of Tyson's favorite essays, this book explores a myriad of cosmic topics, from the movie industry's feeble efforts to get its night skies right to what it would be like to be inside a black hole. As one of America's best-known astrophysicists, the author is a natural teacher...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Our neighboring planets may have the answer to this question. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appear to be enormous oceans underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago.
An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Three great scientific revolutions have shaped our understanding of the cosmos and our relationship to it. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the Copernican Revolution, which bodychecked the Earth as the pivot point of creation and joined us with the rest of the cosmos as one planet among many orbiting the Sun. Three centuries later came the second great scientific revolution: the Darwinian Revolution. It removed us from a distinct,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Long before space travel was possible, the idea of life beyond Earth transfixed humans. In this fascinating book, astronomer Jon Willis explores the science of astrobiology and the possibility of locating other life in our own galaxy. Describing the most recent discoveries by space exploration missions, including the Kepler space telescope, the Mars Curiosity rover, and the New Horizons probe, Willis asks readers to imagine--and choose among--five...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Mohamed A. F. Noor, besides being a Trekkie, is a professor in the Biology Department at Duke University. He is the editor in chief of the journal Evolution and author of You're Hired! Now What?: A Guide for New Science Faculty. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
An engaging journey into the biological principles underpinning a beloved science-fiction franchise
In Star Trek, crew members travel to unusual planets, meet diverse beings, and encounter...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Simone Marchi presents the emerging story of how cosmic collisions shaped both the solar system and our own planet, from the creation of the Moon to influencing the evolution of life on Earth. The Earth emerged out of the upheaval and chaos of massive collisions in the infancy of the Solar System, more than four billion years ago. The largest of these events sent into orbit a spray of molten rocks out of which the Moon coalesced. As in ancient mythological...
14) The Belt
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Upon discovering a rock bearing ancient microfossils, exobiologist Dr. Miguel Hernandez seeks to preserve a tract of Mars for further research. But Lowell Colony Mayor Andre Rand covets the same area for expansion. Now, framed for sabotage, Miguel must flee into the deadly Martian wilderness and, if possible, collect additional evidence before it's destroyed by construction. In a society driven by greed and ruled by corruption, Miguel stands to lose...
Author
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity's coming of age as we awaken to the possibilities of life on other worlds and their sudden relevance to our fate on Earth. Astrophysicist Adam Frank traces the question of alien life and intelligence from the ancient Greeks to the leading thinkers of our own time, and shows how we as a civilization can only hope to survive climate change if we recognize what science has recently discovered: that we are...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Any reader of science fiction or viewer of Star Trek will be awake to the dream that there may be life elsewhere in our universe that isn't like life here on Earth. Maybe, like E.T., it has new letters in its genetic alphabet! Maybe it's made of silicon! Maybe it gets around on wheels! Or maybe it doesn't. In The Equations of Life, biologist Charles Cockell makes the surprising argument that the Universe constrains life, making its evolutionary outcomes...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"Inside the epic quest to find life on the water-rich moons at the outer reaches of the solar system. Where is the best place to find life beyond Earth? We often look to Mars as the most promising site in our solar system, but recent scientific missions have revealed that some of the most habitable real estate may actually lie farther away. Beneath the frozen crusts of several of the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn lurk vast oceans...
Author
Publisher
Bloomsbury Sigma
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Ultimately, we need to figure out what is next for humanity. Our logical move is to break free of the confines of the Earth and colonise another body in the Solar System, such as the Moon or Mars. How and when will we do this? Or is it all just science fiction? These questions, in a nutshell, make up the core of astrobiology-- the study of the origins and evolution and biology of life elsewhere in the universe, and the search for it. This book is...
Didn't find it?
Didn't find it in the Minuteman Library Network? Request it from other Massachusetts library systems.
Can't find what you are looking for? Recommend it to your local library as a future purchase. Suggest a Purchase