One of Ten Billion Earths, Karel Schrijver
One of Ten Billion Earths, Karel Schrijver
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One of Ten Billion Earths
How We Learn About Our Planet's Past and Future From Distant Exoplanets

Author: Karel Schrijver

Narrator: Steve Menasche

Unabridged: 14 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/02/2018


Synopsis

This book explores how the discoveries within the Solar System and of exoplanets far beyond it come together to help us understand the habitability of Earth, and how these findings guide the search for exoplanets that could support life. The author highlights how, within two decades of the discovery of the first planets outside the Solar System in the 1990s, scientists concluded that planets are so common that most stars are orbited by them.

The lives of exoplanets and their stars are inextricably interwoven. Stars are the seeds around which planets form, and they provide light and warmth for as long as they shine. At the end of their lives, stars expel massive amounts of newly forged elements into deep space, and that ejected material is incorporated into subsequent generations of planets.

How do we learn about these distant worlds? What does the exploration of other planets tell us about Earth? Can we find out what the distant future may have in store for us? What do we know about exoworlds and starbirth, and where do migrating hot Jupiters, polluted white dwarfs, and free-roaming nomad planets fit in? And what does all that have to do with the habitability of Earth, the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life, and the operation of the globe-spanning network of the sciences?

About Karel Schrijver

Karel Schrijver is a stellar astrophysicist who specializes in the study of the Sun and the space around it, stellar magnetism and its impacts on the environments of planets, and space weather. He was lead scientist and Principal Investigator on two of NASA's scientific spacecraft studying the Sun: TRACE and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. He coauthored over 200 research publications and articles. He wrote a textbook on solar and stellar magnetism, was lead editor on the five-volume series of Heliophysics books, and coauthored a popular science book entitled Living with the Stars, about the connections between the human body, the Earth, the planets, and the stars.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Charlene on March 12, 2019

I keep hoping to find a book about exoplanets that will wow me like Neutrino Hunters by Ray Jayawardhana, but every book on exoplanets seems to just provides facts without any fo the awe I need to really fall in love with a book. This was no exception. Still waiting to be wowed.......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on February 28, 2019

A little too granular on a very specific topic. it was hard towards the end to still pay attention. I am also confused about how likely live on other planets is.......more

Goodreads review by Randy on October 04, 2019

This book digs deep, down to the core, of planetary creation, our solar system, and the Universe. As I listened to the audio version of this book, the more excited I became. A huge amount of research on exoplanets, the habitability zones, and the astronomical amount of possible Earths that could exis......more

Goodreads review by Scott on April 28, 2019

One of Ten Billion Earths takes a detailed look at exoplanets, the planets that orbit stars beyond our own solar system. While it has essentially no mathematics (it does use big numbers though), it is an amazingly complete look at the astronomy behind exoplanets including how we discover them, what......more