Terra Incognita: 'The Planet Factory' And 'The Undiscovered Islands' : NPR
Elizabeth Tasker
Two recent books look at the very human (sometimes all-too-human) process of trying to make sense of the known universe:  The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries  Phantoms and Fakes  by Malachy Tallack  and The Planet Factory: Exoplanets and the Search for a Second Earth  by Elizabeth Tasker .  They 're so stylistically and scientifically disparate as to seem unrelated  but reading  them  in close succession makes for something greater than the sum of its parts â a joint atlas of human guesses in a world that seems destined to confound us.
 Elizabeth Tasker  knows all about that; The Planet Factory is all about the formation of worlds humanity might never clap eyes on. And if you're hoping for definitive answers about how things work closer to home  think again;  Tasker 's very clear that the scientific method is as often about being proven wrong. "The problem (and there is always a problem)" isn't just an aside on a particular theory  but a thesis for the field. This is a book about trying to map unknown seas in real time; the ghosts of the sailors peering into the dawn looking for Thule live in every telescopic survey.
The Planet Factory can feel intimidating; certainly you must come to it wanting to know everything there is to know about making planets  and hang in there as long as you can before the variables overwhelm you. ( Tasker  offers easy analogies by the handful  and while at first they may seem too easy  you'll appreciate them by the time you're trying to understand the optimum timing of planetary migration.)
The Planet Factory Exoplanets and the Search for a Second Earth by Elizabeth Tasker Hardcover  336 pages   purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?
Two recent books look at the very human (sometimes all-too-human) process of trying to make sense of the known universe:   [TGT]  [TGT]  're so stylistically and scientifically disparate as to seem unrelated  but reading   [TGT]   in close succession makes for something greater than the sum of its parts â a joint atlas of human guesses in a world that seems destined to confound us.
  [TGT] knows all about that; The Planet Factory is all about the formation of worlds humanity might never clap eyes on. And if you're hoping for definitive answers about how things work closer to home  think again;   [TGT]  's very clear that the scientific method is as often about being proven wrong. "The problem (and there is always a problem)" isn't just an aside on a particular theory  but a thesis for the field. This is a book about trying to map unknown seas in real time; the ghosts of the sailors peering into the dawn looking for Thule live in every telescopic survey.
The Planet Factory can feel intimidating; certainly you must come to it wanting to know everything there is to know about making planets  and hang in there as long as you can before the variables overwhelm you. (  [TGT] offers easy analogies by the handful  and while at first they may seem too easy  you'll appreciate them by the time you're trying to understand the optimum timing of planetary migration.)
The Planet Factory Exoplanets and the Search for a Second Earth by Elizabeth Tasker Hardcover  336 pages   purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?