David Koerner is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Simon LeVay is an Independent Consultant and former Associate Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

It is only recently that advances in chemistry, physics, and biology and in their application to space and the space sciences, have provided scientists with the tools to make accurate and well-informed predictions about the possibility of life on other planets. In this book, the authors summarize and present the scientific search for life in the universe, and the current level of scientific understanding of how life begins, grows, and becomes intelligent in our Solar System and beyond. This engaging book promises to appeal not only to the general reader but to scientists as well, many of whom strive to acquire an informed perspective on the search for extraterrestrial life in fields not their own.

• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Origns: How Life on Earth Began


• Going to Extremes: The Habitats and Requirements for Life


• The Incredible Shrinking Martians: Searching for Life in the Solar System


• The Death and Life of Stars: Organic Chemistry and the Evolution of Solar Systems


• The Planet Finders: Searching for Life Beyond the Sun


• What Happens in Evolution? Chance and Necessity in the Origin of Biological Complexity


• SETI: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence


• Dreamland: The Science and Religion of UFOs


• Exotica: Life as we don't know it


• Many Worlds: Cosmology and the Anthropic Principle


• Conclusion


• Endnotes