Alan M. de León’s Reviews > The Little Book of Exoplanets > Status Update

“Sometimes, though, when I’m in a different mood, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence seems like one of our civilization’s most forward-looking activities. We should be thankful there are at least a few special people on Earth who believe so strongly in the transcendent importance of finding life elsewhere in the universe that they are willing to devote their careers to such a speculative endeavor.”

“Over the last few decades, exoplanetary science descended from the realm of airy speculation to become a data-driven field with a rapidly advancing frontier. Every month, someone reports a startling new planetary system, describes a creative new application of existing data, or proposes an ambitious new instrument to perform ever-more-penetrating observations.”

“The galaxy’s planetary systems are hundreds of billions of theaters showing different performances of the laws of physics. The more performances we observe, the more we will understand.”

“Based only on the fact that you have opened this book and are reading this page, I’ll venture to guess we have something in common. At some point in your life, you were outside on a clear night looking at the stars, and you started wondering. Do any of those stars have planets? Are there other worlds like the Earth?”