Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

I 'binge-read' this book in 3 days, couldn't put it down -- Frank has an impeccable talent for thought-provoking story telling (whether you catch him giving a talk in person, over the radio, or in writing) and yet I think he may have outdone himself with this one... The prose is elegant, the arguments compelling and clearly presented, and the conclusions powerful.

In light of the torrent of newly discovered exo-worlds, Frank expertly picks up where Drake left off, re-envisioning the age-old question "are we alone in the universe?" and presenting new research to back his discerning insights into humanity's future.

If you are interested in the possibility of life elsewhere, humanity's place in the universe, and solving the energy crisis that faces our civilization (and in fact, all technologically advanced civilizations argues Frank), you should own a copy of this book. It is not only a page turner, it is profound and deeply important.

Light of the Stars - Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth - Adam Frank - Non Fiction - Astronomy - Space Exploration - Earth Science [0779-August 2, 2018]

The scientific theories of the possibility of life on other planets and the amazing discoveries of multitudes of alien worlds is a major topic of this interesting and comprehensible book. The author also discusses theories of how intelligent life could evolve and why we have never, so far, detected any sign or signal confirming we are not alone.

As a non-scientific trained individual with a deep interest in this topic I appreciated the author's conversational writing style. Make no mistakes author Frank is a professor of astrophysics and the book is firmly grounded in science fact. I would highly recommend this book to curious high school students and adults who wish to know more about this subject matter.

I have read several other books on this topic and would recommend "The Eerie Silence" by Paul Davies. Mr. Davies has been involved with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) for over 30 years and currently chairs the Post-Detection Taskgroup of SETI

This is an excellent book. Initially checked the book out from the library and realized that this is one of the books I want to own so bought it from Amazon. Before posting this review I read the others posted. I typically try to find the least favorable reviews as I often learn the most from them. In this case I found that the reviews from folks that gave this book three stars or less were posted by readers who obviously had not read the book carefully and thoroughly.

For example, one reviewer panned the book because he thought the author stated the Drake equation incorrectly. Actually the author provides a precise and understandable explanation of every term in the Drake equation and it is exactly the set of terms in the original Drake equation. I am guessing the reader thought it was incorrect because the author did not use exactly the same symbols and subscripts as the original equation. The reason I say that reader must not have read the book carefully is that the author goes on and as a major point of the book reformulates the Drake equation to lump parameters in a way that allows one to set a “pessimism” threshold that can be used to mathematically distinguish a level of pessimism required to say how likely life and or civilizations are to have ever arisen elsewhere in the universe. So not only is the author’s statement of the Drake equation correct, he actually uses it in a way to further enlighten our understanding of the meaning of the terms.

Another review took issue with the classification of civilizations by their level of ability to harness energy at the planet, solar system, galaxy, etc. level and attributed this classification to the author. But this classification is actually proposed by someone else and a major part of this book is to propose a different classification that better reflects the evolution of a wholistic system that supports civilization and it sustainablity. So again, the reader’s criticism is misplaced and reflects the fact that they either did not read the book in its entirety or did not understand it.

This book’s unique contribution is that it can help inform and shift the argument about climate change. It provides insights into the climate changes that have occurred in the past and is informed by our observations of other planets and systems. The fundamental questions posed in the book are: what conditions are needed for a civilization to arise; how common are these conditions in the universe; how sustainable are they? It firmly puts us in the drivers seat - but does not tell us what to do. That is our choice.

This book is excellent for understanding what civilization has done to the Earth and how that interaction may proceed. Very worth reading. Up to a point. Somewhere midway through the book, Frank's information and analyses become highly irrelevant to humans. For example, in one of the last chapters he discusses a hypothetical classification of planets as types I, II, III or IV. The type depends on whether the civilization of a hypothetical planet can capture and use 1) all the energy from its sun that falls on its planetary surface, 2) all the energy from its sun everywhere, or 3) all the energy from its galaxy. Think about such a civilization. Would it be conducive to the life and happiness of real humans, and the other forms of life that we need around us to survive and live the kinds of lives we evolved for? These ideas are for people who want to ignore the real needs of biological humans. The fact that we have emotions. Need natural ecosystems. Go ahead and read this part if you enjoy science fiction. Or think your descendants will be robots.

Take everything you think you know about aliens and throw it out. Light of the Stars is a brilliant and fascinating look into the world of astrobiology and its implications for Earth’s future. Using a combination of science, history, and narrative, Frank illuminates how humans, as an intelligent civilization, are driving the course of Earth’s evolutionary fate. He asserts that we are most likely not the only intelligent civilization to have existed in the cosmos, and by taking this concept seriously, we can begin to understand our full impact on our planet. He illustrates how we can learn from other planets and other universes throughout time and (literally) space to broaden our understanding of what it is like to be an intelligent civilization in the driver’s seat. Frank’s ability to take complex scientific theory and break it down into palatable portions is a gift. Light of the Stars is indeed brilliant, both in substance and execution.

This is a superb book. Among its many fine features, I especially enjoyed being introduced to so many (for me) new names of persons who have made crucial contributions to our science. Their work and their dedication, persistence, and indomitable spirit in the face of skepticism are inspiring. Add the name of Adam Frank to that list. I have been reading science books for the general reader since the Sputnik era, and I rank this in my Top Ten. Dr. Frank writes with poise, clarity, and a marvelous sense of wonder at the remarkable achievements of those who have come before us. His commentary on the crucial accomplishments of Jack James and Carl Sagan are wonderful, and permit me to add that he also many times refers to the outstanding work of Lynn Margulis, whose research and theories I particularly enjoy and admire.

To those who dismiss global warming, please walk to your local library and take out this book. What we have learned about our solar system and nearby systems in our galaxy in just the past twenty-five years is astounding. This new knowledge has grave consequences for the fate of the Earth. Dr. Frank writes in a way that will not put you off, but rather will pull you in, in the manner of a splendid novel.

Opened my eyes to other parts of space I never knew. Loved it.

I was really looking forward to this book, but ended up being disappointed. Contains a lot of filler material, and unnecessary rehashing and ply-by-play of historical discoveries, as well as pandering to the climate change hysteria audience. Constant references to the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock and an entire chapter titled "The Awakened Worlds" are borderline New Age nonsense. By the end I was half expecting him to start talking about transcendental meditation and psychedelic drugs to help communicate with Mother Earth...

The book was easy to read, well explained and a good start for readers who are new to this field.

However, I have been involved in computer simulation of complex systems and found that reliance on predictions of some systems is just so much guesswork. I found that the Author's discussion and predictions of the lifetime of exo-civilizations hard to swallow. (Really ?)

I suggest also reading the newly published book by Michio Kaku: "The Future of Humanity" which covers much of the same material ...... but is even more speculative

I saw this in the new books section at my library.

I should probably recuse myself from reviewing the book: I first turned to the index at the back and, being most interested in what he said about SETI, started reading the page entries listed there. I soon learned the author, as a grad student in the late 1980s, started doing research with/under "WTS3" (he'd know who that means), as did I as an undergrad about a decade earlier -- including the UW Student Radio Telescope.

Also, in the Acknowledgements Frank mentions his Ph.D. thesis advisor was "BB". I was a paper grader for "BB" my senior year. It was memorable for being a class having a student with *two* physics/astronomy professors as parents; I used his homework and exams as the answer key! It wasn't the same course I'd taken the year before, and I think "BB" was new on the faculty. This student was in an entirely different galaxy; I think he made one little careless mistake all year. Net: the author of this book and I have trod the same hallways and worked with some of the same people.

Well, this book was well written, clear, and made for easy reading (hardly four or five sittings) -- except for the plethora of typos: after the first 4-5 I was reading with a pencil in hand to cross out (or insert) the extra "the" or "a" once I'd stopped and made sense of the sentence. Somebody needed to proof read this book one last time before they hit the PRINT button. This is one reason I'm marking it down a star.

The other is the confusion caused around pgs 154-55. As other reviewers have indicated, by this time we've been told the story, going back many decades, of the Drake Equation, and of the Space Age transformation of geology (or earth science) into the planetary sciences, now that we have several examples (including large moons) that we've studied up close as well as thousands more discovered at great distances.

I was only just recently reviewing some of the transcripts of the SETI conferences held back about forty years ago, when methods for detecting any exoplanets were a staple topic of research and discussion. I give Frank credit for filling me in on my curiosity surrounding why the photometric/transit method (upon which the recent Kepler spacecraft was based) was not on the radar screen back then: it had only one stalwart lower-level advocate carrying its banner. Jupiter causes only a 0.01 magnitude drop in the Sun's brightness for 29 hours once every 12 years (0.028% of the time) -- but only if you happen to be in the plane of the solar system -- so you need to monitor thousands of stars, and with at least about 2 orders of magnitude better precision than was the norm then, to even the odds.

Okay, so while Drake was trying to come up with a value for the number of radio capable civilizations we might detect right now in our galaxy, Frank enlarges the picture to "a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." dimensions by asking what the number of such civilizations has ever been, whenever and wherever in the universe. This is his quantity "A" (p 154).

His equation for A sets it equal to the product of two things, one representing all the astronomical factors, the other all the biological ones. Thanks to all the work turning up a large sample of exoplanets we now know the first variable is 1/5, meaning one in five stars, in a sample of our galaxy at least, has a planet orbiting in its habitable ("Goldilocks") zone, where the temperature would allow liquid water to exist.

Frank then sets A to one, meaning we're the only radio capable civilization ever in the history of the universe -- the so-called pessimistic view -- and then solves for the factor representing the sum total of all the biological factors in going from a suitable physical and chemical environment to the evolution of creatures with radio telescopes. So this is A/(1/5)=5? Except it isn't. Instead it comes out 10^-22 (p 155). So there's a missing factor of 5E22 which doesn't ever get explained. I think it must represent the currently accepted value for the number of stars in the universe -- the number of stars per galaxy (2.5E11) times the number of galaxies (2E11). At least this makes the units work out right.

Once I got that ironed out I was able to follow the rest of the arguments, which mainly consist of trying to make this seem like an improbably small number, even by the standards of the avowed pessimists, meaning it's unlikely A is so small as just one. I think that's a fair summary of the book.

The problem is this gets into angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin territory. Unless they left an automated powerful omnidirectional radio beacon for our convenience, a civilization that existed several billion years ago in some distant galaxy is undetectable by us, even if they lasted as long as the dinosaurs (10^8 years), so there's no tangible difference whether they existed or not. Archeologists are left mainly with puzzling ruins and mysteries.

The only possibility I know of in this area are some (rare) extremely low surface brightness galaxies which otherwise seem normal except for not having very many stars. Could this be what a galaxy looks like after a galactic civilization surrounds almost all its stars in Dyson spheres? So far I don't think any of the few known examples have been shown to have the IR emission characteristics one would then expect, but maybe one will turn up. Then we would know it could be done, but not necessarily how. This is kind of like knowing that a particular mountain or rock wall has seen a first ascent, but not having any of the details beyond that. It only helps a little to know it can be done.

Unfortunately, to find more candidates probably requires a telescope not just up in orbit but also up and out of the plane of the solar system, because of the sunlight scattering off of all the comet debris and ground up asteroid dust which has accumulated near the plane. This causes what we see as the zodiacal light. Most people don't realize that getting above the upper atmosphere airglow only reduces the sky background level at visual wavelengths by some 30-40%, not 95-100%, due to this, so the sky is not that much darker up on orbit than at a ground-based dark site. There are other advantages to having a 'scope up where it's really dark, but it'll be some time before it's achieved.

To wrap up, this book was worth reading even if there were a few bumps on the road along the way. I think it left out additional astronomical factors which could go into the Drake Equation that seem to be getting attention as of late: the need for a fairly strong magnetic field (to deflect solar and cosmic radiation), which both Venus and Mars lack, as well as the need for a large moon like ours to spin stabilize the planet, to name but two -- though they may not be independent: we may only have a decent magnetic field (and plate tectonics) because of the (rare) collision thought to have formed the moon. The net is that it may not be enough to just be in the habitable zone.

There were a few other things I expected to find mentioned in a few places that weren't: a) Von Neumann machines (self-replicating interstellar robotic spacecraft for exploring the galaxy), which might have motivated Enrico Fermi to ask his famous question; and b) the reason the nebular hypothesis for the formation of the solar system was not given any credence a century ago was because under it the angular momentum follows the mass and you end up with a Sun spinning 1000x faster than it does, so to make it work out right you need magnetic fields to transfer the angular momentum outward.

All-in-all though it was good enough book that I'll probably try to read one of his others, too.