Strange New Worlds by Ray Jayawardhana

From The Week of October 15, 2012 Of the many consequential questions humanity is yet to answer, only one has the power to reorder our society no matter the outcome. Is there life elsewhere in the universe, beyond our shores, beyond our star? If the answer is no then we might well be a species sired by the divine. For what would be the odds, in a galaxy of 200 billion stars, that life would arise only on one planet, orbiting one ordinary star? Religionists the world over would have the necessary ammunition to make a victory of their creationist worldview. But if life does exist on other worlds, if, rather than persist alone, we are but a single voice in a vibrant chorus of sentience, then the foundations of our religions and our philosophies will be shattered, leaving us to reevaluate our relatively unremarkable position in the galactic neighborhood. How will we settle this question? Mr. Jayawardhana explains the mechanics of planet-hunting in his delightful, astronomical journey.

For centuries now, we've understood that the sea of lights in the night's sky is a tapestry of stars, suns like our own that burn brightly in the cold vacuum of space. We've even known, for some time now, that these unfathomably large nuclear reactors, during their formation, capture debris which eventually coalesce into planets of gas and rock, ice and iron, that settle into various orbits around their parent stars. We've understood that, for life to form on these worlds, they must be a certain distance from their suns, far enough away as to not be scorched and yet close enough as to not be frozen. However, until the last two decades, we've only grasped these concepts by looking at Earth, our home, and teasing out the laws and circumstances by which planets can be made hospitable to life. Observation of other worlds had, thanks to a lack of understanding and technological advancement, to be left to the arena of speculation and wonder.

All of that changed in 1995 when the first exoplanet, a world orbiting a star other than our own, was discovered. In the 17 years since, astronomers, deploying various techniques and computerized telescopes, have increased that number to 800, worlds of diamond and methane, ice and inferno, worlds where day never becomes night nor night day, worlds so large they could swallow our own without even a burp. And though we have not yet found life in the universe, the possibility grows, with every passing discovery, that one night, a human being will stare into the sky with the aid of a telescope and find out there a world where someone else is looking back.

From microlensing to spectral lines, from hot Jupiters to superearths, Strange New Worlds is a captivating journey through the most recent history of human astronomy: its methods, its practitioners, and its technologies. Mr. Jayawardhana, a professor at the University of Toronto, begins his chronicle by explaining the startlingly difficult means by which exoplanets are detected and concludes with examinations of several of the most interesting members of this crop. And yet, for as educational as these revelations are, it's the journey in-between that delights most. For here, the author conveys not only love for his field but an understanding and a respect for the discipline, the determination, and the passion necessary to advance the cause and push back the unknown inch by painstaking inch. For astronomy is not a science for the half-hearted. It is a nocturnal commitment whose rewards are as rare as they are spectacular.

At the current rate of discovery, the odds are that we will discover someday soon that we are not alone in the universe. And on that day, and the years thereafter, we will look back at the trail-blazers who, over countless nights, studied the sky and brought us incrementally closer to that shattering revelation. Mr. Jayawardhana is one of those pioneers. And though his work here is brief, he wastes few words, packing a lifetime of understanding into a text any layman can comprehend. This is enchanting and rewarding work.

Highly educational and not in the least dull... (4/5 Stars)