Description: "Is there life off Earth? Bound by the impracticalities of spaceflight, astrobiologists investigate the question by studying life on our planet. Astronomer and author Jon Willis shows us how it's done, allowing readers to imagine extraterrestrial landscapes by exploring their closest Earth analogs. With Willis, we dive into the Pacific Ocean on the submersible E/V Nautilus to ponder the uncharted seas of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons, search the Australian desert for stromatolites and consider Martian rocks, listen to dolphins in the Bahamas to imagine alien minds, and visit La Silla Observatory in Chile to listen for sounds of extraterrestrial communication. With investigations ranging from meteorite hunting to exoplanet detection, Willis speculates what life might look like on other planets by extrapolating from what we can see on Earth, our single "pale blue dot"-as Carl Sagan famously called it-or, in Willis's reframing, scientists' "pale blue data point.""--
Brief description: Jon Willis is professor of astronomy at the University of Victoria in British Columbia where he studies both the properties of the universe we live in and the formation of life within it. He is the author of All These Worlds Are Yours: The Scientific Search for Alien Life.
Review Quotes:
"A highly engaging, captivating and timely book."
--Leonard David "Inside Outer Space"