Out of This World and Into the Next: A Physicist's Guide to Space Exploration

By: Adriana Marais

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Synopsis: A theoretical physicist's grand tour of how life emerged on Earth and how human civilization will begin expanding beyond our home planet.This is a theoretical physicist&’s grand tour of how life emerged on Earth and, perhaps most importantly, how human civilization will begin expanding beyond our home planet. According to Dr. Adriana Marais, living on more than one planet is an inevitability of becoming a more advanced society, but the process of getting there will provide us with the essential tools for better stewardship of our own. Humanity has always looked up at the night sky and wondered what lies beyond our world. Now, we are on the precipice of stepping out among the stars, not just as lone astronauts or billionaire tech bros, but as a civilization. Our story is one of curiosity and an innate desire to explore and understand not only the world around us, but the world within us, and the worlds above us, from extremophiles to extraterrestrials, technosignatures to terraforming, DNA to Dyson Spheres. In this sweeping treatise on exploration, innovation, and human ingenuity, theoretical physicist Dr. Adriana Marais seeks to answer the questions that stand at the heart of scientific endeavor: What are the building blocks of life and how does life emerge? Are we alone in the universe and if so, why? How did we get here—and where are we going next?