Universal Life: An Inside Look Behind the Race to Discover Life Beyond Earth

While the hunt for Earth-like planets has been rewarding, it’s also been anything but easy. In this dense and detailed history, Boss, an astrophysicist and chair of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group, takes readers along on the roller-coaster saga of modern planet-hunting. The story begins with the Kepler Space Telescope, NASA’s exoplanet-finding workhorse satellite, launched in 2009. Kepler’s sensitive photometer measured the dimming in stellar brightness when an orbiting planet “transited” or passed in front of its star. That dip in light level allows astronomers to determine the planet’s distance from the star, and its surface temperature. A planet in the “habitable zone” is warm enough to have liquid water on its surface: the right environment for life to evolve. Other telescopes joined the search, from the Hubble Space Telescope and the European satellite CoRoT, to ground-based radio telescopes. More a history than purely about science, Boss’s work gives readers a visceral sense of the highs and lows of modern research, from the distractions of interagency competition to the frustrations of shifting political interest and unpredictable funding. With clear writing and compelling characters, Boss’s story is as much about how modern science gets done as it is about the fascinating results. (Jan.)