Understanding Life in the Universe

About this book

The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. In particular, from our Earth-based vantage point, we are keen to know where the closest life to us is, and how similar it might be to life on our home planet. This book deals with both of these key issues. It considers possible homes for life, with a focus on Earth-like exoplanets. And it examines the possibility that life elsewhere might be similar to life here, due to the existence of parallel environments, which may result in Darwinian selection producing parallel trees of life between one planet and another. Understanding Life in the Universe provides an engaging and myth-busting overview for any reader interested in the existence and nature of extraterrestrial life, and the realistic possibility of discovering credible evidence for it in the near future.

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

Customer Reviews

Biography

Wallace Arthur is an evolutionary biologist with an interest in how life evolves on other planets, and in particular how similar the life forms that evolution produces on one inhabited planet may be to those on another. He is the author of The Biological Universe (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Understanding Evo-Devo (Cambridge University Press, 2021).