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The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe |
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The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe |
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基本信息·出版社：Random House USA Inc
·页码：416 页
·出版日期：2007年12月
·ISBN：1400065062
·条形码：9781400065066
·装帧：精装
·正文语种：英语
·外文书名：活的宇宙
内容简介 Astrobiology–the study of life in space–is one of today’s fastest growing and most popular fields of science. In this compelling, accessible, and elegantly reasoned new book, award-winning scholar and researcher Chris Impey explores the foundations of this rapidly developing discipline, where it’s going, and what it’s likely to find.
The journey begins with the earliest steps of science, gaining traction through the revelations of the Renaissance, including Copernicus’s revolutionary declaration that the Earth was not the center of the universe but simply a planet circling the sun. But if Earth is not the only planet, it is so far the only living one that we know of. In fascinating detail,
The Living Cosmos reveals the incredible proliferation and variety of life on Earth, paying special tribute to some of its hardiest life forms, extremophiles, a dizzying array of microscopic organisms compared, in Impey’s wise and humorous prose, to superheroes that can survive extreme heat and cold, live deep within rocks, or thrive in pure acid.
From there, Impey launches into space, where astrobiologists investigate the potential for life beyond our own world. Is it to be found on Mars, the “death planet” that has foiled most planetary missions, and which was wet and temperate billions of years ago? Or on Venus, Earth’s “evil twin,” where it rains sulfuric acid and whose heat could melt lead? (“Whoever named it after the goddess of love had a sorry history of relationships.”) The answer may lie in a moon within our Solar System, or it may be found in one of the hundreds of extra-solar planets that have already been located.
The Living Cosmos sees beyond these explorations, and imagines space vehicles that eschew fuel for solar- or even nuclear-powered rockets, all sent by countries motivated by the millions to be made in space tourism.
But
The Living Cosmos is more than just a riveting work about experiment and discovery. It is also an affecting portrait of the individuals who have devoted their lives to astrobiology. Illustrated throughout,
The Living Cosmos is a revelatory book about a science that is changing our view of the universe, a mesmerizing guide to what life actually means and where it may–or may not–exist, and a stunning work that explains our past as it predicts our future.
作者简介 Chris Impey, recipient of eleven teaching awards at the University of Arizona, is the youngest person ever to be awarded the position of University Distinguished Professor there. In 2002, he was named the National Science Foundation Distinguished Teaching Scholar by the Carnegie Foundation, and in 2005 was selected a Galileo Circle Scholar, the College of Science’s highest honor. Impey has had fourteen projects approved for observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. He is co-author of
Astronomy: The Cosmic Journey and
The Universe Revealed. He currently serves as vice president of the American Astronomical Society. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly Until a few years ago scientists believed that habitable zones around stars were fairly narrow. Today, after the discovery of 250 planets around other stars, they have had to reconsider the basic requirements for life and even how to define life. Impey, a noted astronomer at the University of Arizona and observer with the Hubble telescope, takes readers on a journey from the emergence of life on a still bubbling Earth to possible scenarios for our descendants fleeing a dying sun. Impey pays more attention than many writers to the importance of star types and their location in the galactic neighborhood for producing and sustaining planets. He shows how resilient microbes may be able to survive light-year-long journeys huddled deep within meteors and comets, and that we now know that the moons in our solar system alone offer an amazing range of possibly favorable environments for life, from the ice oceans on Jupiter's moons to the methane geology of Titan. Impey makes good use of his extensive teaching background in this carefully laid-out book. Readers with little formal science background will enjoy this wild ride through the ages and deep space as much as will dedicated SETI buffs. B&w illus.
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文摘 Chapter 1.
THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION
There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. . . . [W]e must believe that in all other worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world.
-Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.), letter to Herodotus
The young scholar clutches the book to his chest as he works his way through the crowd. Campo dei Fiori is packed; it's a jubilee year, and Rome teems with pilgrims, beggars, and pickpockets. He edges forward, brushing aside the vendors who tug at his sleeve. Days earlier, a small item in a local broadsheet caught his eye. A Dominican monk from Nola was to be put to death, having exhausted the patience and goodwill of the authorities. The scholar sighs. His heart is heavy at the prospect. It is not yet a century since the death of Leonardo, but enlightenment has dimmed so much that it seems like eons.
With difficulty, the scholar climbs scaffolding behind a merchant stall so he can see over the heads of the mob. Yelling at the far side of the square tells him that Bruno has arrived, having been paraded naked through the streets of Rome. He is bound to the stake with thick rope while a local functionary reads the charges. The scholar can only catch fragments: "impenitent heretic . . . failure to recant . . . persistent follies."
A soldier drives a nail through Bruno's tongue and into his jaw to stop him from speaking. As a token of mercy, the soldier hangs a bag of gunpowder around his neck to speed the end of his suffering. Bruno shakes his head as the crucifix is offered to him. Shouts fill the air; lit torches are raised and then lowered. The scholar cannot bear to watch; he pushes his way out of the square.
•••
The book in the hand of the young scholar was On the Infinite Universe and Worlds, written by Giordano Bruno in 1584. Bruno was a mystic and a philosopher. He had no formal training in science
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