One of Ten Billion Earths: How we Learn about our Planet's Past and Future from Distant Exoplanets
Karel Schrijver
Abstract
Illustrated with breathtaking images of the Solar System and of the Universe around it, this book explores how the discoveries within the Solar System and of distant exoplanets come together to aid understanding of the habitability of Earth, and how this guides the search for exoplanets that could support life. The author recounts 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 twelve chapters highlight what we have learned about exoplanets and how the l ... More
Illustrated with breathtaking images of the Solar System and of the Universe around it, this book explores how the discoveries within the Solar System and of distant exoplanets come together to aid understanding of the habitability of Earth, and how this guides the search for exoplanets that could support life. The author recounts 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 twelve chapters highlight what we have learned about exoplanets and how the lives of exoplanets and their stars are inextricably interwoven. Stars are the seeds around which planetary systems form. Stars provide their planets with light and warmth for as long as they shine. At the end of their lives, stars expel massive amounts of newly forged elements into deep space. That ejected material is incorporated into subsequent generations of planets. How do we learn about these distant worlds? What does the exploration of other planets tell us about the history of Earth? Can we find out what the distant future may have in store for us? What do we know about exoworlds and starbirth, and where do migrating hot Jupiters, polluted white dwarfs, and free-roaming nomad planets fit in? What does all that have to do with the habitability of Earth and the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life? And how did the globe-spanning network of the sciences begin to answer all these questions?
Keywords:
exoplanets,
Solar System,
space exploration,
search for life,
stars,
habitable planets,
planetary systems,
life on Earth,
history of Earth,
planetary system evolution
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198799894 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198799894.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Karel Schrijver, author
Astrophysicist, retired Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, CA, USA
More
Less