(Review for the Astrobiology Society of Britain.) Is the exploration of space justified by our natural wanderlust? Are we morally obliged to terraform other planets in order to avert stagnation or extinction on Earth? Should we worry about the socio-economic consequences of asteroid mining, or the aesthetic damage done by the extraction of Helium-3 from … Continue reading Book review: Nobody Owns the Moon
Mars has been a wandering star, a vengeful God, and latterly a storied world of shifting greenery, huge canals, carved faces, pyramids, aliens, and warrior princesses. Today, it is hard to see Mars through the haze of these cultural-historical associations. In the midst of this haze, it seems quite reasonable to talk about terraforming. If … Continue reading The Aesthetic Objection to Terraforming Mars
(Review for the Astrobiology Society of Britain.) In Lucky Planet, David Waltham argues that Earth’s teeming, complex biosphere is a rare anomaly in an almost sterile cosmos. From the start, he acknowledges that many of us have strong intuitions to the contrary: isn’t Earth just another planet orbiting just another star? There are trillions of … Continue reading Book Review: Lucky Planet
Last year, in a car park in Aberdeen, I saw Jupiter through a telescope for the first time. What I saw was not the familiar red-spotted giant from the Nasa photographs, that great bronze bauble marbled with cream like artisan coffee—no. What I saw, through a gap in the Scottish clouds, was a pale round smudge … Continue reading Lost in Space
Life on Earth isn’t limited to the surface: the biosphere has deep roots. In a new scientific paper in FEMS Microbiology Ecology, my PhD supervisor and I put deep continental biomass on the weighing scales. What’s beneath our feet? Beneath mine: the soles of my slippers; then a thin carpet and some insulated plywood … Continue reading The forests beneath our feet
Because starlight takes many years to reach us, the stars in the night sky are images of the past. This curious fact has inspired the following two poems, which like starlight have outlived their originators. . For the Star by Mihai Eminscu (1850 – 1889) Translated from Romanian by A. Z. Foreman It’s been a … Continue reading The slowness of starlight
For the first time in history, new planets are regularly discovered around other stars. Could they support life? In a new paper in Planetary and Space Science, my colleagues and I show that life may exist far outside the traditional “habitable zone”. Life on Earth requires liquid water, an accessible source of energy and … Continue reading Habitable zones for deep biospheres
