Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future (New in Paper)

250 Pages·2011·2.99 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Bennett

BEYOND UFOS
Also by Jeffrey Bennett:
Textbooks
Life in the Universe
The Cosmic Perspective
The Essential Cosmic Perspective
The Cosmic Perspective Fundamentals
Using and Understanding Mathematics
Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life
Books for Children
Max Goes to the Moon
Max Goes to Mars
Max’s Ice Age Adventure (with Logan Weinman)
Max Goes to Jupiter
Books for Adults
On the Cosmic Horizon
(Don’t Be) Bad at Math
beyond ufos
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and
Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future
With a new afterword by the author
J B
effrey ennett
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2008 by Jeffrey Bennett
Requests for permission to reproduce material from
this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton
University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William
Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Third printing, and fi rst paperback printing, 2011
Paperback ISBN 978- 0- 691- 14988- 2
The Library of Congress has cata loged the cloth edition of this
book as follows
Bennett, Jeffrey O.
Beyond UFOs : the search for extraterrestrial life and its
astonishing implications for our future / Jeffrey Bennett.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13549-6 (alk. paper)
1. Exobiology. 2. Life on other planets.
3. Life—Origin. I. Title.
QH327.B446 2008
576.8'39—dc22 2007037872
British Library Cata loging- in- Publication
Data is available
This book has been composed in Aldus
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
To my wife, Lisa,
and my beautiful children,
Grant and Brooke
May your lives be fi lled with laughter
as you reach for the stars.
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All this world is heavy with the promise of
greater things, and a day will come, one day
in the unending succession of days, when
beings, beings who are now latent in our
thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand
upon this earth as one stands upon a foot-
stool, and shall laugh and reach their hands
amidst the stars.
—H. G. Wells, 1902
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contents
Preface Alien Dreams xi
Ac know ledgm ents xv
1
Worlds beyond Imagination 1
2
What Makes It Science? 22
3
What I Know about Aliens 41
4
What Is Life? 62
5
Getting Life Started 87
6
The Makings of a Truly Great
Planet 111
7
Life in the Solar System 137
8
Life among the Stars 161
9
The Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence 184
10
Where Is Everybody? 197
To Learn More 207
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 209
Index 221