From worlds where stars do not twinkle, to lands where you must outrun the sun-rise to survive, "Alien Earths" by Lisa Kaltenegger is packed with truly delicious visuals of what we might find on the surface of an exoplanet.
Kaltenegger gives a personal account of what it's like working at the cutting edge of uncovering the nature of these alien worlds, with many amusing anecdotes such the perils of interdisciplinary work!
And this is why I wanted to create a graphic of a glass planet!
Lava worlds, where magma cools into "glasses" are very likely to exist in our Galaxy. But "glass planets" made from a transparent and breakable material is even less likely than only recognising the love of your life by her shoe size.
I really related to Kaltenegger's descriptions of interdisciplinary research, as I have been in debates where the source of the disagreement turned out to be what we called the planet "surface" 😂
It has only been during Kaltenegger's career that speculation about exoplanets has morphed into a true data-drive study of potential surface properties.
In "Alien Earths", Kaltenegger's narrative is driven by personal stories throughout her career that led to her founding the "Carl Sagen Institute" at Cornell University: an interdisciplinary team to study life in the Universe.
But there is one point in the book where Kaltenegger feels the need to justify discussing her personal experiences...
Kaltenegger describes the outrage expressed by her student upon hearing two men state that Kaltenegger was only awarded a prestigious award because she was a woman.
She discusses how she's handled sexism during her career, and also highlights times when the support she's received has demonstrated that there are positive changes.
But in a book driven by personal narrative, this is the only time that Kaltenegger justifies discussing her own experiences. That tells us we still have a way to go.
As you can tell, I enjoyed "Alien Earths" a lot! Despite being a writer myself, I have dyslexia and I'm not a fast reader. But I swallowed this book in gulps.
My only criticism is that the scientific explanation can be a smidge short or late in the narrative. So if you are 100% new to the field, this might be confusing.
But this is from someone whose own book, 'The Planet Factory" has been criticised for being too heavy! So this is really personal preference.
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