Book contents
- Understanding Life in the Universe
- Understanding Life
- Understanding Life in the Universe
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
- 2 Where in the Universe to Look?
- 3 Evolution – Here and Elsewhere
- 4 The Key Concept of Habitability
- 5 Life in the Solar System
- 6 Life in Other Planetary Systems
- 7 The Nature of Extraterrestrial Life
- 8 Intelligence – Here and Elsewhere
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References and Further Reading
- Figure Credits
- Index
1 - The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2022
- Understanding Life in the Universe
- Understanding Life
- Understanding Life in the Universe
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
- 2 Where in the Universe to Look?
- 3 Evolution – Here and Elsewhere
- 4 The Key Concept of Habitability
- 5 Life in the Solar System
- 6 Life in Other Planetary Systems
- 7 The Nature of Extraterrestrial Life
- 8 Intelligence – Here and Elsewhere
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References and Further Reading
- Figure Credits
- Index
Summary
For many millennia, humans have gazed up in wonder at the night-time sky. The full panoply of the Milky Way is an awesome sight. The scale of space is immense. Is there life out there somewhere? If so, where, and what form does it take? In the space of a couple of sentences, we’ve already gone from generalized wonder to specific questions. The next step is from questions to hypotheses, or, in other words, proposed answers. Here are two such hypotheses that I’ll flesh out as the book progresses: first, life exists on trillions of planets in the universe; second, it usually follows evolutionary pathways that are broadly similar to – though different in detail from – those taken on Earth.
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- Understanding Life in the Universe , pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022