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mentat_stem 's review for:
The Planet Factory: Exoplanets and the Search for a Second Earth
by Elizabeth Tasker
I started reading this as I grieved a friend I'd talked about astronomy with over the years.
My love of astronomy was cemented as a core piece of my personality the Summer of 1995 at the month long Governor's School @ William and Mary University. Many of the concepts touched on in this book were first encountered then.
For many years after I finished my physics BS and moved out to California my Mom bought me popular science books like this.
All of that was in the mix every time I read a chapter over the course of 2019. The running theme that blows my mind about the science of exo-planet hunting is how much information is extracted from such tiny data points. A dip in brightness of a star says so much. I feel the author did the same thing with the topic.
Most of us have a picture in our mind of a planet orbiting our sun. Some of us really think about the moon whenever we see it in the sky. This book provides the birds and bees of how planets are made. It uses that foundation to breakdown the exo-planet headlines over the last few decades. It reminds us how many projects and devices have contributed to this particular slice of astronomy.
It's not lost on me that many of the topics hint at how we might make our planet uninhabitable in the coming centur(ies). There are those who dismiss climate science and one of the many reasons I pity such individuals is that they'll never get the chance to appreciate this book.
I tend to not binge popular science books. I read a chapter and then put it aside for a week or a month. Many don't survive the process and are left unfinished. This one, I'm tempted to start a second read-through in the new year.
My love of astronomy was cemented as a core piece of my personality the Summer of 1995 at the month long Governor's School @ William and Mary University. Many of the concepts touched on in this book were first encountered then.
For many years after I finished my physics BS and moved out to California my Mom bought me popular science books like this.
All of that was in the mix every time I read a chapter over the course of 2019. The running theme that blows my mind about the science of exo-planet hunting is how much information is extracted from such tiny data points. A dip in brightness of a star says so much. I feel the author did the same thing with the topic.
Most of us have a picture in our mind of a planet orbiting our sun. Some of us really think about the moon whenever we see it in the sky. This book provides the birds and bees of how planets are made. It uses that foundation to breakdown the exo-planet headlines over the last few decades. It reminds us how many projects and devices have contributed to this particular slice of astronomy.
It's not lost on me that many of the topics hint at how we might make our planet uninhabitable in the coming centur(ies). There are those who dismiss climate science and one of the many reasons I pity such individuals is that they'll never get the chance to appreciate this book.
I tend to not binge popular science books. I read a chapter and then put it aside for a week or a month. Many don't survive the process and are left unfinished. This one, I'm tempted to start a second read-through in the new year.