ISBN : 9780198799894
Illustrated with breath-taking images of the Solar System and of the Universe around it, this book explores how the discoveries within the Solar System and of exoplanets far beyond it come together to understand the habitability of Earth, and how these findings guide the search for exoplanets that could support life. The author highlights how, within two decades of the discovery of the first planets outside the Solar System in the 1990s, scientists concluded that planets are so common that most stars are orbited by them. The lives of exoplanets and their stars, as of our Solar System and its Sun, are inextricably interwoven: stars are the seeds around which planets form, they provide light and warmth for as long as they shine, and at the end of their lives they may destroy their planets even as they release newly forged materials, out of which other planets, including Earth, are made.
1 From one to astronomical
2 One step short of life
3 Exploring the Solar System
4 Exoplanet systems and their stars
5 The birth of stars and planets
6 Drifting through a planetary system
7 Lone rovers
8 Aged stars and disrupted exosystems
9 The worlds of exoplanets
10 Habitability of planets and moons
11 The long view of planetary systems
12 Living on a pale blue dot