Out of this world and into the next A physicist's guide to space exploration
Book - 2025
"This is a theoretical physicist's grand tour of how life emerged on Earth and, perhaps most importantly, how human civilization will begin expanding beyond our home planet. According to Dr. Adriana Marais, living on more than one planet is an inevitability of becoming a more advanced society, but the process of getting there will provide us with the essential tools for better stewardship of our own. Humanity has always looked up at the night sky and wondered what lies beyond our world. Now, we are on the precipice of stepping out among the stars, not just as lone astronauts or billionaire tech bros, but as a civilization. Our story is one of curiosity and an innate desire to explore and understand not only the world around us, bu...t the world within us, and the worlds above us, from extremophiles to extraterrestrials, technosignatures to terraforming, DNA to Dyson Spheres. In this sweeping treatise on exploration, innovation, and human ingenuity, theoretical physicist Dr. Adriana Marais seeks to answer the questions that stand at the heart of scientific endeavor: What are the building blocks of life and how does life emerge? Are we alone in the universe and if so, why? How did we get here-and where are we going next?"--
| Location | Call Number | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd Floor New Shelf | 523.1/Marais | (NEW SHELF) | Checked In |
- Subjects
- Published
-
New York :
Pegasus Books
2025.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First Pegasus Books cloth edition
- Item Description
- Includes index.
- Physical Description
- xii, 356 pages ; 24 cm
- ISBN
- 9781639368815
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I. Where Do We Come From?
- 1. The Universe
- In The Beginning: The Big Bang
- What We Can See: Galaxies, Stars And Exoplanets
- Places We Can Observe: Our Solar System
- Worlds Within Reach: Our Celestial Neighbours
- 2. Our Biosphere
- Life Started Small
- Great Change Drives Complexity
- Our Universal Common Ancestor
- What Is Life? Zooming In
- 3. Are We Alone?
- The Building Blocks Of Life In Space
- Extremophiles: Clues To Life Beyond Earth
- Life On Mars?
- The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- More Things Than Dreamt Of In Our Philosophy
- Part II. Who Are We?
- 4. Explorers
- Our Origins: Forged In Fire
- Seeking New Worlds
- Out In The Cold
- Into Thin Air
- Feeling The Heat
- Off-World Analogues
- 5. Innovators
- Leaving The Cradle
- Communication: Starring The Photon
- Information Processing: Featuring The Electron
- Getting Off The Ground: Propulsion Systems
- The View From Earth Orbit
- Men On The Moon
- 6. Worldshapers
- Legacy Power Systems
- The Anthropocene
- Terraforming
- Part III. Where Are We Going?
- 7. Off-World
- A Day In The Life On Mars
- The Belt And Beyond
- Leaving The System
- 8. Back To Basics
- Off-World Economics
- Universal Principles
- Transforming Our World
- Epilogue
- Index