Strangers in the Night : A Brief History of Life on Other Worlds

Presents a history of humankind's attempts to discover extraterrestrial life, including the Mars Underground, SERENDIP, and Project Phoenix

A nuclear physicist and a journalist, respectively, the Fishers (Tube: The Invention of Television, Counterpoint, 1996), a father-and-son team, review scientific research on the possibility of life beyond Earth, beginning with Percival Lowell's claims about canals on Mars and continuing right up to recent discoveries of planets around other stars and NASA's announcement of possible microorganisms on a meteorite from Mars. Intended for lay readers, their book covers much the same ground as Michael Lemonick's Other Worlds (LJ 4/1/98) and is equally good. Dick is an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory whose Life on Other Worlds, an abridged and updated version of The Biological Universe (Cambridge Univ., 1996), is deeper and broader than the Lemonick and Fisher books. In addition to reviewing scientific work on extraterrestrial life, he also explores the connections to science fiction, the UFO controversy, and some modern philosophers' musings. His book is aimed at a fairly sophisticated audience and is strongly recommended for all academic libraries.?Jack W. Weigel, Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The possibility of life on other planets has tantalized earthbound humans for centuries. Now modern science has given us the tools to look for that life, and two leading researchers (father and son) invite us to join in the exciting quest. Mechanized rovers have long since dispelled fantasies of Martians building cities and digging canals. But electron microscopes are turning up possible evidence of bacteria in meteorites from the Red Planet, even as submarines are finding microbes in deep-sea environments similar to those detected on one of Jupiter's moons. But nothing stirs higher expectations than the efforts to send and receive radio signals to intelligent life beyond Pluto. With high-power telescopes now giving us glimpses of planets in other solar systems, hopes of making contact are soaring. The authors examine these hopes with intelligence--and shrewd wit--balancing the skeptics' doubts against the optimists' faith. Out-of-this-world reading. Bryce Christensen