Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos -- Lisa Kaltenegger, Hardcover

"In the grand tradition of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, we now have a new tour guide to the cosmos."―Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh

"Absorbing, informative, and entertaining."―Kirkus (starred)

Riveting and timely, a look at the research that is transforming our understanding of the cosmos in the quest to discover whether we are alone.

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. But once you look for 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 has built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to create a 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.

With the James Webb Space Telescope and Dr. Kaltenegger's pioneering work, she shows that we live in an incredible new epoch of exploration. As our witty and knowledgeable tour guide, Dr. 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?

Author: Lisa Kaltenegger
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 04/16/2024
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.53h x 5.74w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781250283634

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2023
Booklist 02/15/2024 pg. 11
Publishers Weekly 02/19/2024
Library Journal 03/01/2024 pg. 119

About the Author
Lisa Kaltenegger is the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell and Associate Professor in Astronomy. She is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling potential habitable worlds and their detectable spectral fingerprint. Kaltenegger served on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), and on NASA senior review of operating missions. She is a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS Mission as well as the NIRISS instrument on James Webb Space Telescope. Kaltenegger was named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, an Innovator to Watch by TIME Magazine. She appears in the IMAX 3D movie "The Search for Life in Space" and speaks frequently, including at Aspen Ideas Festival, TED Youth, World Science Festival and the Kavli Foundation lecture at the Adler Planetarium which was live-streamed to six continents.