Overview: What does existing scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, meteorology and biology tell us about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life and civilizations? And what does the fact that there is currently no credible scientific evidence for the existence of extrat…
What does existing scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, meteorology and biology tell us about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life and civilizations? And what does the fact that there is currently no credible scientific evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial…
This book describes the most complex machine ever sent to another planet: Curiosity. It is a one-ton robot with two brains, seventeen cameras, six wheels, nuclear power, and a laser beam on its head. No one human understands how all of its systems and instruments work. This esse…
This book's interdisciplinary scope aims at bridging various communities: 1) cosmochemists, who study meteoritic samples from our own solar system, 2) (sub- ) millimetre astronomers, who measure the distribution of dust and gas of star-forming regions and planet-forming discs, 3…
Like planets in our solar system, exoplanets form, evolve, and interact with their host stars in many ways. As exoplanets acquire material and grow to the final size, their atmospheres are subjected to intense UV and X-radiation and high-energy particle bombardment from the youn…
Like planets in our solar system, exoplanets form, evolve, and interact with their host stars in many ways. As exoplanets acquire material and grow to the final size, their atmospheres are subjected to intense UV and X-radiation and high-energy particle bombardment from the youn…
This volume comprises a selection of papers describing the main features of the Lanzarote and Chinijo Islands Geopark (Canary Archipelago, Spain). Of all the Global Geoparks worldwide, it is the only one that has officially evaluated and characterized specific areas as analogues…
This volume comprises a selection of papers describing the main features of the Lanzarote and Chinijo Islands Geopark (Canary Archipelago, Spain). Of all the Global Geoparks worldwide, it is the only one that has officially evaluated and characterized specific areas as analogues…
The amazing science behind the search for Earth-like planetsEver since Carl Sagan first predicted that extraterrestrial civilizations must number in the millions, the search for life on other planets has gripped our imagination. Is Earth so rare that advanced life forms like us-…
This second, revised and thoroughly updated edition of the successful textbook by Claus Grupen describes the branch of astrophysics known as astroparticle physics. Using experimental methods known from cosmic ray and particle physics, astroparticle physics investigates processes…
Exoplanet, extrasolar planet, exoEarth, exojupiter: neologisms still absent from many dictionaries. These terms are, however, current among astronomers, and are heard in their answers to a question already two millennia old: are there planets like ours elsewhere in the Universe?…
Sixteen million years ago, an asteroid crashing into Mars sent fragments flying into space and, eons later, one was pulled by the Earth's gravity onto the icy wilderness of Antarctica, where a geologist spotted it. In its new home at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the r…
The field of exoplanet astronomy is advancing toward the atmospheric characterization of Earth-like planets around nearby stars, with the ultimate goal of probing these exoplanets for evidence of life. Yet despite requiring the development of telescopes and measuring devices wit…