Talking about Life: Conversations on Astrobiology

by Chris Impey (Editor)

With over 500 planets now known to exist beyond the Solar System, spacecraft heading for Mars, and the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence, this timely book explores current ideas about the search for life in the Universe. It contains candid interviews with dozens of astronomers, geologists, biologists, and writers about the origin and range of terrestrial life and likely sites for life beyond Earth. The interviewees discuss what we've learnt from the missions to Mars and Titan, talk about the search for Earth clones, describe the surprising diversity of life on Earth, speculate about post-biological evolution, and explore what contact with intelligent aliens will mean to us. Covering topics from astronomy and planetary science to geology and biology, this book will fascinate anyone who has ever wondered ‘Are we alone?'

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

418 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor in the Astronomy Department and Associate Dean in the College of Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has written popular articles on astronomy and is the author of a number of popular science books. The Living Cosmos is a tour of the search for life in the universe, and the pair of books How It Ends and How It Began cover the origin and fate of everything in the universe. Talking About Life is a series of conversations with pioneers in astrobiology. With Holly Henry, he wrote about the scientific and cultural impact of a dozen iconic NASA missions, Dreams of Other Worlds. A book about his experiences teaching cosmology to Tibetan monks, Humble Before the Void was published in 2014, and his book about the future of humans in space, called Beyond, was published in 2015. His first novel is called Shadow World.

Reviews

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astrobiology has finally become a serious discipline, and this book provides an engaging way to get a read on the critical research questions and on where things stand today (although "today" recedes awfully quickly in this field).

Chris Impey interviews a collection of scientists and others working as researchers or speculators on topics central to astrobiology -- how life originated on earth, how likely it is to develop in other environments, how likely it is that life elsewhere would evolve intelligence, how many planets and moons might provide suitable environments, how we might detect life elsewhere, how different that life might be from what we know, and how good a position we are in to answer any of these questions.

You might think that a book composed of interviews -- dialogs between Impey and his subjects, each about 10 to 15 pages long -- would be a relatively breezy read. But it isn't. So many scientific disciplines are involved, and so many difficult and complex questions are crucial to astrobiological research that no reader could be prepared for everything that Impey and his subjects delve into. In my own case, I have a much stronger background in astronomy than in so many of the topics that appear earlier in the book -- geology, paleontology, biology, . . . I slogged through some of those earlier discussions more slowly, occasionally hitting other sources to fill in the background for some of the discussions.

I enjoyed reading the book -- it gave me just what I was looking for in terms of an understanding of where the field is today. On the whole, with some exceptions, the subjects of Impey's interviews are optimistic about finding life, if not intelligent life, elsewhere, even within our own solar system (Mars, Europa, and Titan being the most intriguing candidates).

I don't think Impey is obligated to provide a "balanced" view -- after all, astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life, as careers, will likely draw more optimists than pessimists. If you want more pessimistic views, there's plenty to read out there, including especially Ward and Brownlee's "Rare Earth" referenced frequently in this book.

What this book gives us is that state of the discipline report, with personal perspectives from some of its leading figures.

[Serhat Kaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tartışma götürmez tek bir antropik ilke var. Evren yaşamı imkânsız kılan fiziksel yasalara sahip olsaydı, bunu konuşuyor olmazdık. Su bunun iyi bir örneği. İnsanlar yaşamın suya uyum sağladığı fikrini, suyun yaşama uyum sağladığını iddia eden antropik görüşle karıştırıyorlar. Oysa birinden diğerine ulaşamayız. Yaşam açıkça kendi çevresine uyum sağlıyor; son derece güçlü bir uyum sağlama imzası görüyoruz. Bunun tam tersini söyleyen güçlü bir işaret görmeyi bekleyemeyiz.

"Suyun özel niteliklerinin (donduğunda süzülmesi ve iyi bir solvent olması) yaşam için elverişli olduğu savunulmuştur. Fakat genel olarak, buzun yüksek basınçta pek çok kristalli formu vardır (polimorf adı verilir) ve sadece bilinen Buz I su kadar yoğun değildir. Yüksek basınçlı biçimlerin Dünya-benzeri olmayan ortamlarda var olacağı tahmin ediliyor. Yaşam söz konusu olduğunda, suyun negatif yönleri vardır, çünkü birçok önemli kimyasal bileşenin oluşumuna veya istikrarına aykırı hareket eder.(Steve Dutch, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay)"

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good overview of this new field. Astrophysics held my imagination for some time, but now that there have been numerous exoplanetary discoveries- and there will be nothing but more in years to come- a far better term for my interests is Astrobiology.
Because I think, along with a great many of the scientists interviewed herein, that given the ways chemicals react and given the proper habitable zones, there is bound to be- inevitably- life elsewhere. Even if it is not "intelligent" life, this will force us to rethink our anthropo-conceited views of Everything. Which might not be so bad for humanity, though I imagine a great many religio-fundamentalists will become apoplexied.

[Sarah Mankowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many excellent interviews.