Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Al-Khalili, British theoretical physicist and author of Life on the Edge, has now pieced together this compilation of 20 essays on alien life written by some of the world's leading experts, including Anil Seth, Ian Stewart, and Adam Rutherford. The big questions are presented in an attempt to portray a balanced array of views. What types of theoretical encounters and alien motives are there? Where should our search for life extend? What is extraplanetary "life"? Where are we now in the time line of the hunt for cosmic company? The result is a rainbow of opinions, from positive affirmation that there is some form of life out there to a pessimistic treatment of mathematical improbabilities that throw the question out altogether. Much like Louisa Preston's Goldilocks and the Water Bears, this book succeeds in looking much deeper than the typical earthbound definition of life and examines strange creatures that survive in the harshest climates (such as resilient micro-animals) and may be indicative of the forms that could exist on other planets.