Books by Chris Impey

With 10 billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the universe, the probability there is life beyond Earth is high. We’re also likely to find out more in the next five to seven years, says Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and author of Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity. Here, he recommends four brilliant books about exoplanets as well as one about life on Earth, our only example of biology to date.

The ‘subterranaut’ describes how the discovery of ancient bacteria miles beneath the Earth’s surface opens the possibility of finding life on Mars. He picks five books that show how our knowledge of life deep in this planet could lead us to discover it elsewhere.