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Astrobiology: The Search for Life in the Universe
It isn’t a new field: Carl Sagan was arguing for the plausibility
of other worlds — and other life — way back in 1966. But astrobiology,
in recent years, has seen a rebirth. The rapid-fire discovery of
30-odd planets will do that. Ditto the finding of what could be
fossil bacteria in a hunk of Martian meteorite. Then there are the
fresh insights about life here at home. Who knew, 15 years ago,
that there was more of it embedded in rocks beneath Earth’s surface
than there is above ground? Or that living things thrive in boiling
hotsprings and Antarctic wastes? On the lookout for life of the
extraterrestrial kind, today’s astrobiologists — trained in chemistry,
geology, and molecular biology, as well as astronomy — have refined
their ideas about where, and whether, they’re likely to find it.
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Beauty Marks
At the Museum
Room to Grow Old
Words into Space
Perspective
Building Bridges
Filling the Pit
Iroquois Corn?
Out of Africa
Cleaning Up with Bugs
Sapped Sugar Maples
Of Fire and Memory
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