Five Billion Years of Solitude
The Search for Life Among the Stars

This book reads much as if it was based on notes taken during an all night bull session with leading scientists. It's sort of a travelogue by a journalist reporting on his itinerant interviews with the leading minds in astrophysics and the earth sciences.  Along the way we learn about science and al......more

Uma ótima explicação sobre a busca por vida inteligente no espaço, mais voltada para condições do que para sinais de rádio e SETI – que o The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence explica mais. Ele dá uma ótima atualizada sobre o que entendemos sobre formação de planetas, evoluçã......more

I liked this book quite a bit, but I am a sucker for planet formation and the search for other habitable planets. I would say however that I would like this book to have talked in depth about brown dwarfs and some of the newer ideas about how matter accretes to form planets. If you too want to read......more

Science writer Lee Billings accomplishes a lot in the pages of Five Billion Years of Solitude (published in the U.S. in October 2013 by Current). He describes the entire history of Earth, including the rise and spread of life; the history of thinking about Earth’s place in the universe; and the hist......more

Lee Billings captures the current state of affairs associated with the search for exoplanets and life beyond our solar system. He creates a detailed picture that includes the history of this search up through its present-day composition, and the final composition resembles a hopeless mess. Past and p......more