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Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309463947
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 133
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Book Description
The search for life is one of the most active fields in space science and involves a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including planetary science, astronomy and astrophysics, chemistry, biology, chemistry, and geoscience. In December 2016, the Space Studies Board hosted a workshop to explore the possibility of habitable environments in the solar system and in exoplanets, techniques for detecting life, and the instrumentation used. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309463947
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 133
Get Book
Book Description
The search for life is one of the most active fields in space science and involves a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including planetary science, astronomy and astrophysics, chemistry, biology, chemistry, and geoscience. In December 2016, the Space Studies Board hosted a workshop to explore the possibility of habitable environments in the solar system and in exoplanets, techniques for detecting life, and the instrumentation used. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
Author: Wallace Arthur
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674982274
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
All humans share three origins: the beginning of our individual lives, the appearance of life on Earth, and the formation of our planetary home. Wallace Arthur combines embryological, evolutionary, and cosmological perspectives to tell the story of life on Earth and its potential to exist elsewhere in the universe.
Author: Kevin Hand
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691227284
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book 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 that may have existed for as long as Earth, and together may contain more than fifty times its total volume of liquid water. Could there be organisms living in their depths? Alien Oceans reveals the science behind the thrilling quest to find out. Kevin Peter Hand is one of today's leading NASA scientists, and his pioneering research has taken him on expeditions around the world. In this captivating account of scientific discovery, he brings together insights from planetary science, biology, and the adventures of scientists like himself to explain how we know that oceans exist within moons of the outer solar system, like Europa, Titan, and Enceladus. He shows how the exploration of Earth's oceans is informing our understanding of the potential habitability of these icy moons, and draws lessons from what we have learned about the origins of life on our own planet to consider how life could arise on these distant worlds. Alien Oceans describes what lies ahead in our search for life in our solar system and beyond, setting the stage for the transformative discoveries that may await us.
Author: Sarah Stewart Johnson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101904828
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
“Sarah Stewart Johnson interweaves her own coming-of-age story as a planetary scientist with a vivid history of the exploration of Mars in this celebration of human curiosity, passion, and perseverance.”—Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams WINNER OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA AWARD FOR SCIENCE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Times (UK) • Library Journal “Lovely . . . Johnson’s prose swirls with lyrical wonder, as varied and multihued as the apricot deserts, butterscotch skies and blue sunsets of Mars.”—Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum—on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science. In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own. Johnson’s fascination with Mars began as a child in Kentucky, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky. She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth’s most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting life on other worlds. Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey—as a female scientist and a mother—with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: This other world has been our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings. Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.
Author: Lucas John Mix
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674054288
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
Life is a property of the universe. We may not know how it began or where else it exists, but we have come to know a great deal about how it relates to stars, planets, and the larger cosmos. In clear and compelling terms, this book shows how the emerging field of astrobiology investigates the nature of life in space. How did life begin? How common is it? Where do we fit in? These are the important questions that astrobiology seeks to answer. A truly interdisciplinary endeavor, astrobiology looks at the evidence of astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry, and a host of other fields. A grand narrative emerges, beginning from the smallest, most common particles yet producing amazing complexity and order. Lucas Mix is a congenial guide through the depths of astrobiology, exploring how the presence of planets around other stars affects our knowledge of our own; how water, carbon, and electrons interact to form life as we know it; and how the processes of evolution and entropy act upon every living thing. This book also reveals that our understanding and our context are deeply intertwined. It shows how much astrobiology can tell us about who we are—as a planet, as a species, and as individuals.
Author: Tracy K. Smith
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 155597659X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 88
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Book Description
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize * Poet Laureate of the United States * * A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * * A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * New poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose "lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib. What Would your life say if it could talk? —from "No Fly Zone" With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.
Author: Sara Seager
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0525576274
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER • An MIT astrophysicist reinvents herself in the wake of tragedy and discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth, in this “bewitching” (Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review) memoir. “Sara Seager’s exploration of outer and inner space makes for a stunningly original memoir.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets—especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager’s husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe. As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match, not in the stars but here at home. Probing and invigoratingly honest, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own kind of light in the dark.
Author: Avi Loeb
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358274559
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller | Wall Street Journal Bestseller | Publishers Weekly Bestseller | Publishers Marketplace 2020 Buzz Book | Amazon Best Book of the Year | Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award “Provocative and thrilling ... Loeb asks us to think big and to expect the unexpected.” —Alan Lightman, New York Times bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Harvard’s top astronomer lays out his controversial theory that our solar system was recently visited by advanced alien technology from a distant star. In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization. In Extraterrestrial, Loeb takes readers inside the thrilling story of the first interstellar visitor to be spotted in our solar system. He outlines his controversial theory and its profound implications: for science, for religion, and for the future of our species and our planet. A mind-bending journey through the furthest reaches of science, space-time, and the human imagination, Extraterrestrial challenges readers to aim for the stars—and to think critically about what’s out there, no matter how strange it seems.
Author: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781549885365
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112
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Book Description
This roadmap, released in early 2014, presents a science-driven 30-year vision for the future of NASA Astrophysics that builds on recent remarkable discoveries to address three defining questions: Are we alone? How did we get here? How does the universe work? Enduring Quests * Are We Alone? * The Exoplanet Zoo * What Are Exoplanets Like? * The Search for Life * Activities by Era * How Did We Get Here? * Stellar Life Cycles and the Evolution of the Elements * The Archaeology of the Milky Way and Its Neighbors * The History of Galaxies * Activities by Era * How Does Our Universe Work? * The Origin and Fate of the Universe * Revealing the Extremes of Nature * Listening to the Cosmos * Activities by Era * Public Engagement: Connecting Through Astronomy * The continuum of astronomy learners * Audiences: From online to one-on-one * Realizing the Vision: Notional Missions and Technologies * Formative Era * The Visionary Era * Cross-cutting, Game-changing Technologies * Science Summary * Technology Summary * Daring Visions * Acronyms Seeking answers to these age-old questions are Enduring Quests of humankind. The coming decades will see giant strides forward in finding earthlike habitable worlds (exoEarths), in understanding the history of star and galaxy formation and evolution, and in teasing out the fundamental physics of the cosmos. * Different astronomical phenomena are typically most prominent in distinct regions of the electromagnetic spectrum: young, dust-enshrouded stars in the far-infrared; older stars and galaxies in visible and near-optical wavelengths; star-forming regions in the ultraviolet, and the million-degree gas of galaxy clusters and black hole accretion disks in X-rays. In addition to spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, the roadmap missions will open a revolutionary new window on the cosmos by detecting gravitational waves, ripples of space-time that emanate from colossal events like the merging of two black holes. These scientific investigations and their enabling space missions are described here in three broad categories of time: the Near-Term Era, defined by missions that are currently flying or planned for the coming decade; the Formative Era, with notional missions (referred to here as "Surveyors") that could be designed and built in the 2020s; and the Visionary Era of technologically advanced missions (referred to as "Mappers") for the 2030s and beyond. The past three decades have seen prodigious advances in astronomy and astrophysics. We have discovered thousands of planets around other stars, revealing a startling diversity of planetary systems and demonstrating that our own solar system is one of many billions across the galaxy. We have mapped the life cycle of stars from their formation in nearby stellar nurseries to their sometimes explosive deaths. We have tallied supermassive black holes weighing millions to billions of times the Sun's mass, finding them in the centers of most big galaxies, where they gorge on gas and stars and blast superheated material into their environments. We have traced the growth and transformation of galaxies from young chaotic shreds a billion years after the Big Bang to the majestic forms they display today. We have established, using precision cosmological measurements, a well-tested account of the Big Bang model's underlying physics. The current picture points to a universe where an early epoch of inflation established uniformity over a vast horizon, where dark matter dominates the gravitational forces that provide the underlying framework of cosmic structure, and where dark energy drives expansion at an ever-accelerating rate.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309214459
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.
