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4 books match the query 'Exobiology'
Encountering Life in the Universe
Ethical Foundations and Social Implications of AstrobiologyEdited by Chris Impey, Anna H. Spitz, and William Stoeger
University of Arizona Press, 2013
Encountering Life in the Universe examines the intersection of scientific research and society to further explore the ethics of how to behave in a universe where much is unknown. Taking contributions from notable experts in several fields, the editors skillfully introduce and develop a broad look at the moral questions facing humans on Earth and beyond.
Major advances in biology, biotechnology, and medicine create an urgency to ethical considerations in those fields. Astrobiology goes on to debate how we might behave as we explore new worlds, or create new life in the laboratory, or interact with extraterrestrial life forms. Stimulated by new technologies for scientific exploration on and off the Earth, astrobiology is establishing itself as a distinct scientific endeavor.
In what way can established philosophies provide guidance for the new frontiers opened by astrobiology research? Can the foundations of ethics and moral philosophy help answer questions about modifying other planets? Or about how to conduct experiments to create life in the lab or about? How to interact with organisms we might discover on another world?
While we wait for the first echo that might indicate life beyond Earth, astobiologists, along with philosophers, theologians, artists, and the general public, are exploring how we might behave—even before we know for sure they are there. Encountering Life in the Universe is a remarkable resource for such philosophical challenges.
Planetary Astrobiology
Edited by Victoria S. Meadows, Giada N. Arney, Britney E. Schmidt, and David J. Des Marais
University of Arizona Press, 2020
Planetary Astrobiology represents the combined efforts of more than seventy-five international experts consolidated into twenty chapters and provides an accessible, interdisciplinary gateway for new students and seasoned researchers who wish to learn more about this expanding field. Readers are brought to the frontiers of knowledge in astrobiology via results from the exploration of our own solar system and exoplanetary systems. The overarching goal of Planetary Astrobiology is to enhance and broaden the development of an interdisciplinary approach across the astrobiology, planetary science, and exoplanet communities, enabling a new era of comparative planetology that encompasses conditions and processes for the emergence, evolution, and detection of life.
Science, Society, and the Search for Life in the Universe
Bruce Jakosky
University of Arizona Press, 2006
Astrobiology is the relatively new, but fast growing scientific discipline that involves trying to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life within the universe. It is also one of the few scientific disciplines that attracts the public’s intense curiosity and attention. This interest stems largely from the deep personal meaning that the possible existence of extraterrestrial life has for so many. Whether this meaning relates to addressing the “Big Questions” of our existence, the possibility of encountering life on other planets, or the potential impact on our understanding of religion, there is no doubt that the public is firmly vested in finding answers.
In this broadly accessible introduction to the field, Bruce Jakosky looks at the search for life in the universe not only from a scientific perspective, but also from a distinctly social one. In lucid and engaging prose, he addresses topics including the contradiction between the public’s fascination and the meager dialogue that exists between those within the scientific community and those outside of it, and what has become some of the most impassioned political wrangling ever seen in government science funding.
The Pale Blue Data Point
An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien LifeJon Willis
University of Chicago Press, 2025
“Here is Willis’s fundamental argument: The more we learn about Earth—our one ‘pale blue data point’ for a planet on which life has definitively arisen—the more qualified we will be to recognize signs of life elsewhere. . . . [A] joyful account.”—Steven Poole, The Wall Street Journal
A thrilling tour of Earth that shows the search for extraterrestrial life starts in our own backyard.
Is there life off Earth? Bound by the limitations of spaceflight, a growing number of astrobiologists investigate the question by studying life on our planet. Astronomer and author Jon Willis shows us how it’s done, allowing readers to envision extraterrestrial landscapes by exploring their closest Earth analogs. With Willis, we dive into the Pacific Ocean from the submersible-equipped E/V Nautilus to ponder the uncharted seas of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons; search the Australian desert for some of Earth’s oldest fossils and consider the prospects for a Martian fossil hunt; visit mountaintop observatories in Chile to search for the telltale twinkle of extrasolar planets; and eavesdrop on dolphins in the Bahamas to imagine alien minds.
With investigations ranging from meteorite hunting to exoplanet detection, Willis conjures up alien worlds and unthought-of biological possibilities, speculating what life might look like on other planets by extrapolating from what we can see on Earth, our single “pale blue dot”—as Carl Sagan famously called it—or, in Willis’s reframing, scientists’ “pale blue data point.”