

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
Categories: Nonfiction, Science, Space Science, Astronomy, Cosmology
Synopsis
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?