Customer Reviews

The Search for Life on Other Planets

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Bruce Jakosky has done an excellent job of pulling together recent thinking from many of the different disciplines that contribute to looking for life on other planets. It would be extremely difficult to find another book that does as good a job at discussing such up-to-date material at an introductory level without sacrificing too much depth. The material in this book should be understandable to advanced undergraduates in biology, geology, chemistry, or physics. It is probably best read by skipping from topic to topic rather than straight through from cover to cover. The "Additional Reading" section at the end provides very good references for more advanced discussions. Overall, I found "The Search for Life on Other Planets" to be an extremely helpful introduction and a good launching board for further reading.

Mr. Jakosky has presented his optimistic view for life on other planets, not just life, but intelligent life. His conclusions are in contrast to those reached by Stuart Ross Taylor's "Destiny or Chance: Our Solar System and its Place in the Cosmos". He has gone into a more exhaustive investigation of the creation of Earth and subsequent life than Taylor did in his book. However, I found it somewhat laborious to plow thru, tending to skip some passages. For anyone with an interest in the subject, I would recommend both books.

Bruce Jakosky has made a marvelous contribution to a subject that will inevitably command increasing attention. His book is well organized, it is well written and the many photos and diagrams add significantly to its value. His explanations of relevant topics are clear whether they involve the fields of geology, chemistry, biology or astronomy. All in all, he does a great job in presenting an objective assessment of the likelihood of finding life within our solar system. Highly readable and it's well worth it.