Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System - Hardcover

Dorminey, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0387950745 ISBN 13: 9780387950747

Publisher: Copernicus, 2001

Synopsis

Recent discoveries of planet-like objects circling other sun-like stars have stirred enormous interest in what other planets may exist in the universe, and whether they could support intelligent life. This book takes us into the midst of this search for extrasolar planets. Unlike other books, it focuses on the people behind the searches -- many known personally by the author -- and the extraordinary technology that is currently on the drawing boards. The author is an experienced, award-winning science journalist who was previously technology correspondent for the Financial Times of London. He has written on many topics in astronomy and astrobiology in over 35 different newspapers and magazines worldwide.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Modern planet-hunters, working around the clock and around the globe, are beginning to find just how mind-bogglingly exotic extra-solar planets and planetary systems can be. Using an extraordinary array of technologies that is still evolving, they have identified -- from their outposts high in the Chilean desert and atop a Hawaiian volcano, from viewing platforms in space and spread over thousands of miles on Earth -- that planets outside our own Solar System are anything but ordinary and predictable.

In this report from the front lines of astronomical research and theory, Bruce Dorminey shows us that:

- Less than 80 years after Edwin Hubble proved that our Milky Way galaxy was not alone, we now know that our galaxy is only one of at least 50 billion -- each of which may contain billions of planets orbiting stars like our Sun.

- So far, extra-solar planets have been detected by indirect means: perturbations in the radio-timing of pulsars, Doppler spectroscopy, and transit photometry. But direct imaging, especially with the advent of space-based telescopes, will play an increasingly important role in the hunt.

- The teams searching the distant skies cooperate with each other -- they share findings and research techniques at frequent meetings -- but they are also locked in an extremely competitive race that has clearly accelerated the pace of development.

- Astronomers continue to debate the frequency of planets and planetary systems around other Sun-like stars, but the number may be much lower than science fiction writers would have us believe.

- The discoveries made by planet hunters have shown that we may need to revise our definitions. Huge gas giants have been detected in orbit around distant stars, but astronomers have not yet decided whether they should be thought of as oversized "Jupiters" or brown dwarfs.

- Within the next generation, we should have the means to detect life on an extra-solar planet light years away simply by analyzing its reflected light -- and we may even be able to select planets that might be good candidates for human colonization.

About the Author:

Paris-based journalist Bruce Dorminey writes about astronomy and astrophysics. He is a former Hong Kong bureau chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine and a former regular science and technology contributor for the daily pages of the Financial Times, London. Dorminey has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including Astronomy, Discover, Geographical, Canada's Globe & Mail, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Toronto Star, and The Dallas Morning News. He is also a 1998 winner in the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards. This is his first book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Copernicus
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0387950745
• ISBN 13: 9780387950747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240