How to find a habitable planet
James F. Kasting.
Bok Engelsk 2010 · Electronic books.
| Omfang | 1 online resource (350 pages)
|
|---|---|
| Opplysninger | Includes index.. - Cover Page -- Half-title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Part I: Introduction -- Chapter 1: Past Thinking about Earth-Like Planets and Life -- The Habitable Zone and the Importance of Liquid Water -- Carl Sagan and the Drake Equation -- Other Perspectives on Planetary Habitability: Rare Earth and Gaia -- Part II: Our Habitable Planet Earth -- Chapter 2: Critical Updates on How Planets Are Built -- The Conventional Wisdom regarding Planet Formation -- Where Did Earth's Water Come From? -- New Models for Planetary Accretion and Delivery of Water -- Could Earth's Water Have Come from Comets? -- An Up-to-Date Simulation of Planetary Accretion -- Chapter 3: Long-Term Climate Stability -- Solar Evolution Theory -- Solar Mass Loss? -- Electromagnetic Radiation and the Greenhouse Effect -- Planetary Energy Balance -- The Faint Young Sun Problem -- Possible Solutions to the Problem -- The Carbonate- Silicate Cycle and Controls on Atmospheric CO2 -- The CO2-Climate Feedback Loop -- Chapter 4: More Wrinkles in Earth's Climate History -- The Phanerozoic Climate Record -- Precambrian Climate -- Geologic Evidence for the Rise of Atmospheric O2 -- Cause of the O2 Rise: Cyanobacteria -- Methane, Methanogens, and the Universal Tree of Life -- The Archean Methane Greenhouse -- The Paleoproterozoic Glaciation -- Chapter 5: Runaway Glaciation and "Snowball Earth" -- Milankovitch Cycles and the Recent Ice Ages -- Ice Albedo Feedback and Climatic Instability -- Evidence for Low- Latitude Glaciation -- Mechanisms for Explaining Low- Latitude Glaciation -- Snowball Earth -- Part III: Limits to Planetary Habitability -- Chapter 6: Runaway Greenhouses and the Evolution of Venus' Atmosphere -- The History of Water on Venus.. - Observing Exoplanet Atmospheres during Transits -- Secondary Transit Spectroscopy -- Characterizing Earth-Like Planets around M Stars -- Chapter 13: Direct Detection of Extrasolar Planets -- What Wavelength Region Should We Choose? -- Infrared Interferometers: TPF-I and Darwin -- Searching for Planets at Visible Wavelengths: TPF- C -- The Visible Occulter: TPF- O -- Nearby Target Stars -- Chapter 14: The Spectroscopic Search for Life -- Spectral Resolution -- The Visible /Near- IR Region: TPF- C or -O -- The Thermal- IR Region: TPF- I or Darwin -- Looking for Life on Early Earth- Type Planets -- Possible False Positives for Life -- Polarization Measurements: Looking for the Glint of Surface Water -- The Holy Grail: Simultaneous Detection of O2 and Reduced Gases -- Chapter 15: Prospects for the More Distant Future -- NASA's Life Finder Mission -- Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens -- The Drake Equation Revisited: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence -- Afterword to the Paperback Edition -- Notes -- Index.. - The Classical Runaway Greenhouse Effect -- An Alternative Runaway Greenhouse Model -- Evolution of Venus' Atmosphere -- Chapter 7: The Future Evolution of Earth -- High- CO2 Atmospheres and Temperature Limits for Life -- Future Solar Evolution and Lifetime of the Biosphere -- A Geoengineering Solution to Solar Luminosity Increases -- Chapter 8: The Martian Climate Puzzle -- Evidence for Liquid Water near Mars' Surface -- CH4 in Mars' Atmosphere? -- Evidence That Water Flowed in Mars' Distant Past -- When Did the Martian Valleys Form? -- How Warm Was Early Mars? -- Mechanisms for Warming Early Mars -- Where Are the Carbonates? -- Chapter 9: Is the Earth Rare? -- Planetary Size / Magnetic Fields -- Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation -- Availability of Nitrogen and the Importance of N2 -- Is Plate Tectonics Common? -- A Planet's Impact Environment -- Stabilization of Earth's Obliquity by the Moon -- Chapter 10: Habitable Zones around Stars -- Historical Attempts to Define the Habitable Zone -- A More Modern Model for the Habitable Zone around the Sun -- Hertzsprung- Russell Diagrams and Main Sequence Stars -- Habitable Zones around Other Stars -- Problems for Planets Orbiting Early- Type Stars -- Problems for Planets Orbiting Late- Type Stars -- Further Extensions of the Habitable Zone Concept -- The Galactic Habitable Zone -- Part IV: How to Find Another Earth -- Chapter 11: Indirect Detection of Planets around Other Stars -- Barnard's Star -- The Astrometric Method -- Pulsar Planets -- The Doppler Effect -- The Radial Velocity Method -- Gravitational Microlensing -- Chapter 12: Finding and Characterizing Planets by Using Transits -- Transits of Mercury and Venus -- Transits of Extrasolar "Hot Jupiters" -- Space- Based Transit Searches: CoRoT and Kepler.. - The amazing science behind the search for Earth-like planetsEver since Carl Sagan first predicted that extraterrestrial civilizations must number in the millions, the search for life on other planets has gripped our imagination. Is Earth so rare that advanced life forms like us—or even the simplest biological organisms—are unique to the universe? How to Find a Habitable Planet describes how scientists are testing Sagan's prediction, and demonstrates why Earth may not be so rare after all.James Kasting has worked closely with NASA in its mission to detect habitable worlds outside our solar system, and in this book he introduces readers to the advanced methodologies being used in this extraordinary quest. He addresses the compelling questions that planetary scientists grapple with today: What exactly makes a planet habitable? What are the signatures of life astronomers should look for when they scan the heavens for habitable worlds? In providing answers, Kasting explains why Earth has remained habitable despite a substantial rise in solar luminosity over time, and why our neighbors, Venus and Mars, haven't. If other Earth-sized planets endowed with enough water and carbon are out there, he argues, chances are good that some of those planets sustain life. Kasting describes the efforts under way to find them, and predicts that future discoveries will profoundly alter our view of the universe and our place in it.This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of finding other planets like ours—and perhaps even life like ours—in the cosmos. In a new afterword, Kasting presents some recent breakthroughs in the search for exoplanets and discusses the challenges facing space programs in the near future.
|
| Emner | |
| Sjanger | |
| Dewey | |
| ISBN | 9781400845088
|
| ISBN(galt) |
