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Looking for Earths: The Race to Find New Solar Systems

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If you're content to have your view of the universe stop right where it is, don't read this book. But if you want to know the planetary exploration history and latest information about the search for planets beyond our solar system, then pick up "Looking for Earths."

Alan Boss, a NASA adviser at the Carnegie Institution, has presented us with an extremely well written, smart and well-informed account of the search for "extrasolar planets", those beyond our solar systems. Just in case anyone thinks that's an easy step-you know, just pull up the telescope and point it at the stars, here is his description of the difficulty:

"Trying to see an extrasolar planet right next to its star is akin to trying to see a tiny mirror being held by a person standing next to a powerful carbon-arc searchlight that is pointed right at you-you can't see the light from the mirror because you are blinded by the far brighter light from the
searchlight itself. Human beings could start at the sky until
their eyes popped without ever seeing a planet belonging to another star."

What Boss does is quickly but clearly tell us the history of planetary exploration, tracing thoughts and discoveries,
starting with Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.E., who thought the Earth was fixed an unmoving, then explaining the brilliance of Copernicus and then Kepler, Brahe, Giordano Bruno, Kant and other early giants.

Then he moves on to such contemporary heroes as Peter van de Kamp, Daniel Goldin and George Gatewood as they come up, rapid-fire, it seems, relatively speaking, with proof of the extrasolar planets' existence, some coming so quickly that scientists joked about subscribing to "Planet of the Week".

What Boss does especially well, besides writing in utterly understandable language, is connect the dots, as it were.

If you read this book, you'll get a wonderful look at scientific thinking and development, instead of getting science piecemeal.

Boss has a rather interesting approach: starting with
Chapter 3, he dates events as he opens the chapter, so that each chapter, and often sub-chapters start with the date of the discovery or event that led to a discovery. It's a neat way of encompassing history and allows us to see how quickly ideas can move along. Most obvious to me was the sense that discoveries are speeding up-each development happens a little more quickly and closely to its predecessor, feeding yet the next discovery.

The science outlined in this book is totally comprehensible to most teenagers and adults and probably some pre-teens as well, if they're reasonably aware of astronomical issues. You may want to skip some of the deeper science and just read about the discoveries and who made them. Charts and photos accompany
several chapters to help explain who did what and why it was important.

Anyone wanting to know more about what's next, and not have to get all their science from Star Trek would be well advised to read this book.