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Rare Earths and Life Unseen

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Cosmic Biology

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Abstract

Speculation that alien life might be found on other worlds can be traced to ancient times. Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo fed those thoughts by showing that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Once it was understood that our planet is just one of several rotating around a solar center, thoughts of other solar systems naturally arose. By 1584, Giordano Bruno was asserting that there must be “ … countless suns, and countless earths all rotating around their suns.” The next conceptual step - that on some of those “countless earths” there might be life - was easy to take.

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References

  1. Grinspoon, D. H. 2003. Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life. New York: HarperCollins.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, USA

    Professor Louis Neal Irwin

  2. Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA

    Professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch

Authors
  1. Professor Louis Neal Irwin
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  2. Professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Irwin, L.N., Schulze-Makuch, D. (2011). Rare Earths and Life Unseen. In: Cosmic Biology. Springer Praxis Books(). Praxis, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1647-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1647-1_1

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  • Publisher Name: Praxis, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1646-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1647-1

  • eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)

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