The Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia: An Alphabetical Reference to All Life in the Universe

The possibility of life on other worlds has stirred the human imagination and stimulated scientific curiosity for as long as people have been looking up at the sky. From Aristotle to Star Trek to the latest pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, the examination of this age-old question continues to arouse profound excitement and has found expression in human culture from the first cosmologies to the latest theories about the origin of life — in oral tradition, literature, and film, and in the rapidly developing disciplines of astrobiology, space exploration, and extrasolar planet detection.

David Darling draws together the many threads of the search for extraterrestrial life in his comprehensive and entertaining guide. His one-of-a-kind resource covers everything from the Arecibo Message; brown dwarfs; cell membranes; Dyson spheres; and extremophiles to biographical portraits of leading scientists, such as Carl Sagan and Jill Tarter; philosophers, such as Rene Descartes and William Whewell; and science fiction writers, such as Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke.

The Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia offers a wealth of information, never before available in a single volume. This includes: almost 1,900 informative entries that cover a wide range of topics—from serious science to pop culture, plus biographical profiles identify over 300 leading contributors in the field, and numerous illustrations. User-friendly cross-referencing makes navigating through the topics easy, and an extensive list of web sites guides further research.