Customer Reviews

Life on Earth -- and Beyond: An Astrobiologist's Quest

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Dr. Chris McKay works for NASA as an astrobiologist, someone who studies extreme environments on earth in an attempt to answer the long-asked question of whether life can exist elsewhere in our universe. This book follows his journey to some of the most lifeless areas of Earth. He searches for tiny microbes in Antarctica, Chile, Siberia, and the Sahara Desert. The underlying theory is that if life is able to survive in the coldest and driest areas of Earth, maybe there is life beyond our planet. The author does a great job at chronicling Dr. McKay's story and making the readers feel like they are along on the journey. The book is filled with colorful pictures of the places that the research team traveled, along with pictures and artist conceptions of Mars and other planets. I especially enjoyed the pictures that compared the surface of Mars to some areas on Earth. This book really got me thinking about whether is it possible that there is life elsewhere in our universe. There are so many science fiction stories about life on other planets, and it was refreshing to hear the case from a scientific standpoint where you can see that the idea is actually possible. There are no "little green men" in this book, only tiny microbes that could be living in places that we would never expect. This book is great for a science fiction fan who wants to learn more about life in our universe from a scientific and realistic standpoint.