"More than half a century after Fermi asked his question, we have still heard nothing. Despite our communication systems, no one has called. The more we explore our local neighborhood, the lonelier it seems. No concrete signs of any life, not even the simplest bacteria, have been found on the Moo...

Whenever an astronomy book comes into my hands, I feel faint. Actually, I feel like a microbe. This is a series that in 50 different ideas, words or themes, the author develops in her research. 

If you take a look at the tags / labels I have chosen to classify this book you will realize wha...

"How would you go about searching for signs of life? The first way is to start looking for microbes within our solar systems. Scientists have scrutinized rocks from the Moon, but they are inanimate basalt. It has been suggested that meteorites from Mars might contain the remnants of bacteria, but...

Science fiction is flanked by science, without ever neglecting fantasy. You get to a point where you can't tell where science ends and science fiction begins. 

Then your fantasy appears and you begin to gallop in a universe you do not know and you are prey to the wildest imagination. 

"But microbes are not going to call home. Now that individual planets are being detected, astronomers are planning on dissecting the light from them to hunt for chemistry that could support or indicate life. Spectral hints of ozone or chlorophyll might be picked up, but these will need precise ob...

Cameras on spacecraft and landers have scouted the surfaces on Mars, asteroids and now even a moon in the outer solar system -- Titan, orbiting Saturn. But the Martian surface is dry and Titan's surface is drenched in liquid methane, though so far devoid of life. Jupiter's moon Europa may host se...

"The detection of life elsewhere in the universe would be the greatest discovery of all time. Physics professor Enrico Fermi wondered why, given the age and vastness of the universe, and the presence of billions of stars and planets that have existed for billions of years, we have not yet been co...