Strange new worlds: the search for alien planets and life beyond our solar system
Sciences et technologies
Audio avec voix humaine
Résumé
After millennia of musings and a century of false claims, astronomers have found hundreds of planets around other stars since 1995, and at the crux of the astronomers’ pursuit is one basic question: Is our solar system, with planets in… circular orbits, gas giants in the outer realm and at least one warm, wet, rocky world teeming with life, the exception or the norm? Astronomers expect to find alien earths by the dozens within the next three years, and to look for signs of life before this decade is out. If they succeed, the ramifications for all areas of human thought and endeavour - from religion and philosophy to art and biology - are profound, if not revolutionary. c2011.