num_pages: 376
description: The science of finding habitable planets beyond our solar system and the prospects for establishing human civilization away from our ever-less-habitable planetary home.Planet Earth it turns out may not be the best of all possible worldsand lately humanity has been carelessly depleting resources decimating species and degrading everything needed for life. Meanwhile human ingenuity has opened up a vista of habitable worlds well beyond our wildest dreams of outposts on Mars. Worlds without End is an expertly guided tour of this thrilling frontier in the search for planets with the potential to host life. With the approachable style that has made him a leading interpreter of astronomy and space science Chris Impey conducts readers across the vast fast-developing field of astrobiology surveying the dizzying advances carrying us ever closer to the discovery of life beyond Earthand the prospect of humans living on another planet. Since the first exoplanet or planet beyond our solar system was discovered in 1995 over 4000 more have been pinpointed including hundreds of Earth-like planets many of them habitable detected by the Kepler satellite. With a view spanning astronomy planetary science geology chemistry and biology Impey provides a state-of-the-art account of whats behind this accelerating progress whats next and what it might mean for humanitys future. The existential threats that we face here on Earth lend urgency to this search raising the Could space be our salvation? From the definition of habitability to the changing shape of space explorationas it expands beyond the interests of government to the pursuits of private industry Worlds without End shows us the science on horizons near and far that may hold the answers.
language: English
title: Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity
publisher: The MIT Press