Imagined Life, Michael Summers
Imagined Life, Michael Summers
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Imagined Life
A Speculative Scientific Journey among the Exoplanets in Search of Intelligent Aliens, Ice Creatures, and Supergravity Animals

Author: Michael Summers, James Trefil

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 9 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/17/2019


Synopsis

The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life

It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring listeners on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life—unlike anything we have experienced so far—that could exist on planets outside our own solar system.

Life could be out there in many forms: on frozen worlds, living in liquid oceans beneath ice and communicating (and even battling) with bubbles; on super-dense planets, where they would have evolved body types capable of dealing with extreme gravity; on tidally locked planets with one side turned eternally toward a star; and even on "rogue worlds," which have no star at all. Yet this is no fictional flight of fancy: the authors take what we know about exoplanets and life on our own world and use that data to hypothesize about how, where, and which sorts of life might develop. Imagined Life is a must-have for anyone wanting to learn how the realities of our universe may turn out to be far stranger than fiction.

About Michael Summers

Michael Summers is a planetary scientist and professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University. Since 1989, he has served on the mission teams of several NASA space probes in the role of science planning and interpretation of spacecraft observations. He is currently a coinvestigator on the NASA New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon double planet, where he serves as the deputy lead of the Atmospheres Theme Team.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrea on December 07, 2019

UK’s Alien Worlds is still one of my favourite documentaries. Speculation based on science in general is something that I’ve always found fascinating. So It’s no surprise that Imagined Life jumped high on the list of my priorities the moment it was released. Just like the aforementioned programme, t......more

Goodreads review by Marta Demianiuk on July 25, 2022

Dla mnie 3,5, ale podciągam pod 4, bo tematycznie to coś nowego wśród kosmicznych książek dla mnie. 3,5 dlatego, że to jednak wciąż popularnonaukowa książka, ma w sobie niewiele z fantastyki, dlatego trzeba się mocno skupić przy lekturze, kiedy autorzy wyjaśniają różne chemiczne i fizyczne zagadnien......more

Goodreads review by Philip on September 04, 2020

Kind of disappointed in this one, but that's more on me than the authors. Both are professors of astronomy and physics, not xenobiologists - but still, where are the aliens? The book focuses on the types of potentially habitable planets out there (a more narrow focus than their earlier, better book......more

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on November 28, 2023

The possibilities of life explained Authors James Terfill and Michael Summers guide us through a fascinating exploration of how, where, and what forms life might take in the vast expanse of the universe. From waterworlds to tidally locked planets, ice worlds, and even rogue planets — wandering the un......more

Goodreads review by Jack on August 17, 2022

Fascinating predictions for what might be discovered and how life might take shape on exoplanets, particularly the Trappist system 40 light years away.......more