Krista Mahoney
Dr. Marcum
Physics 311—Spring Semester
Looking for Earths by Alan Boss Book Review
“I’ll tell you one
thing about the universe, though. The
universe is a pretty big place. It’s
bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us...seems like an awful was
of space. Right?”
—Ellie Arroway from the movie Contact
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/quotes)
Ellie
Arroway, a character in the movie Contact, was right about one thing, it would
be a waste of space if we were the only life in the universe and therefore,
this topic has haunted our thought processes since the
beginning of time. Before we could find
another Earth, we must learn how to find extra-solar objects surrounding stars
in other solar systems. In Alan Boss’s Looking
for Earths, he discusses the process mankind has gone through in the start
of searching for Earth’s in other solar systems, around other stars. Boss says that “for centuries, if not
millennia, human beings have wondered about life on other worlds—are there
planets elsewhere in the universe where creatures similar to Homo sapiens live and dream? Or are we alone in the unfathomable vastness
of the universe? We are about to learn
the answer to this anthropocentric illusion-shattering question” (xi). Did this book get closer to answering some of
these questions? Read on to see what I
felt.
While I felt the book, Looking for Earths by Alan Boss, was an interesting and informative book on the history of the search for planets around other stars in other solar systems, I also felt it was severely lacking in the actual looking for an inhabitable planet elsewhere similar to Earth. Boss tells the history of the search for extra-solar planets as a partially insider perspective, meaning that he is not directly involved in the search for these planets but a well informed theorist who has, in the past, recommended which observational plans to support to NASA officials (this was according to an online biography and partially mentioned in the book and Jack L. Lissauer’s review at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/ content/full/282/5395/1832a?ck=nck). When I was reading, I felt as though I was going through the feelings and thoughts of the scientists making the observations and discoveries must have been feeling. The behind-the-scenes feel of prior discoveries and the insider feeling of future research to be made gave his readers a feeling as though the book was worthwhile. Unfortunately, I did not like this book because it didn’t go along with the title at all and, at least in my opinion, was one of the dullest books I have ever read. I would recommend this book to someone only if they are interested in the search for extra-solar planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn, brown dwarfs, and pretty much anything but Earth-like planets. The reason I would suggest this book to those interested in this topic is because he gave a comprehensive description of those processes but never managed to go into the actual Earth-like planet search. Another reviewer of this book, Jack L. Lissauer, pointed out and said it well when he said that “most of the book is not about ‘looking for Earths,’ as the large print on the front cover implies. It is, however, concerned with ‘the race to find new solar systems,’ words which appear on the cover in a much smaller font” (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5395/1832a?ck=nck). While I agree it is interesting to look into the search for larger planets because it will eventually lead to technology to find Earth-like planets, I feel Boss should have chosen a different title.
Looking
for Earths by Alan Boss did, however, bring up some questions and ideas for
me. Earlier in this paper I mentioned
Ellie Arroway’s (a character from the film Contact) feelings regarding the
probability of life on other planets, I mean, that is the point behind looking
for Earth-like planets, right? Earlier
in that movie, she says that “for as long as [she could] remember, [she’s] been
searching for something, some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we?
[And] if [the opportunity she has] is a chance to find out even just a
little part of that answer...[She didn’t] know, [but
she] think[s] it’s worth a human life” and then proceeded to ask “don’t you?”
to her listeners (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/quotes). This mentality can easily be applied to our
situation as well. I believe it is worth
it to spend the money and continue research for Earth-like planets around other
stars and the search for life within our own solar system as well because I
feel as though it could mean the survival of mankind. Others however might claim that this would
not be money well spent. What do you
think? Did Alan Boss’s book make you
think about topics such as these?