Francisco Vidal Luna

You might be forgiven for thinking that a book about the stars and planets and with a title like this one is about astrology and fortune-telling, but this excellent book really *is* about the stars and planets. More specifically it's about the possibility that there is intelligent life (kinda like us, but hopefully *more* intelligent) out there. And it's a topic that's frequently in the news lately as we see more and more stories about astronomers discovering new "earth-like" planets as they scan the heavens. A problem, Professor Taylor says, is defining what "earth-like" actually means.

This is a very good primer on what we know about the universe, which is largely limited to our observations of those planets nearest us - and what we see is a whole lot of variety. None of the 8 planets in our solar system are alike, and astronomers aren't finding a lot of other planets that resemble them. In fact, the conditions we find nearest to us don't appear to be normal or ordinary elsewhere. Taylor discusses the composition of the planets and the current theories on how each was formed after the Big Bang. He discusses a broad range of things like comets and asteroids and orbits and tilts (and lots of other stuff that was a bit over my head!) and it was fascinating to read. In the end he concludes that the formation of intelligent life on earth (us) was the result of so many accidents and chance events (and his list is very interesting) that the chance of such randomness occurring elsewhere is essentially zero.

This probably isn't the best introductory book for those wishing to know more about the subject, and I found I had to go slowly (and frequently go back and re-read) to understand it. Taylor frequently uses terms that weren't included in the glossary in the front of the book, and sometimes they aren't explained at the same time he first uses them but much later on. He writes with a style (more so in the beginning) that I imagine those more familiar with the subject might fine snarky, but to me it just sounded derisive and condescending. And it was irritating that he begins many sections with quotes that are only attributed in the endnotes of the book - I wish the author (and maybe even the date) had been included with the quote which would have given it better context (the notes in general seemed thin). But that sounds like I'm complaining more than I am and I really enjoyed this book and found it very insightful.… (altro)