We are the Martians: Connecting Cosmology with Biology 2012th Edition

From the reviews:

“This book is ideal for general readers who would like a simplified overview of some of the hot topics and issues in cosmology and ‘contact astronomy’. … it offers facts and theories, as well as open-to-thought ideas on origins. … A large slice of the book reiterates pivotal theories as to what happened after the beginning of the Universe. … A further topic of this book is the possibility of developed forms of life and technological civilizations beyond the Solar System.” (P. Chapman-Rietschi, The Observatory, Vol. 133 (1233), April, 2013)

“In We are the Martians Professor Bignami connects Cosmology with Biology through a 13.7 billion year journey from the first few minutes after the Big Bang … to the formation of planetary systems from embryonic protoplanetary discs. The book goes on to explore exo-planets discovered around other stars and their means of discovery. … The author has done an excellent job of keeping difficult subjects understandable and in doing so has created a thought provoking work that is a joy to read … .” (Paul Rumsby, Best Astronomy Books, September, 2012)

What frightens you more? Believing you are alone in the universe or rather thinking that there’s someone else out there?

Human beings have been asking themselves this question for many thousands of years while looking at the starry sky. Over the past few decades, however, we have moved from imagination to action, exploring the cosmos using new techniques, often with surprising results. Did you know, for instance, that every year many rocks from Mars fall on the Earth? Or that one of our amino acids has been found in the coma of a comet? Or that we now know of thousands of extrasolar planets, some of them similar to our own?

There are further exciting and important discoveries around the corner that will cast more light on the great enigma of how life started on Earth. In this intriguing book, one of the world’s leading researchers in astrophysics and space science examines fundamental questions concerning life on Earth and the rest of the cosmos in an accessible and stimulating way.