astrobiology – Dr Andrew May

6 Feb 20236 Feb 2023

Astrobiology Illustrated Edition

Icon Books have just brought out a new edition of my Astrobiology book, originally published in their series of ‘Hot Science’ paperbacks. This is a double first for me – the first time any of my books has made it to a genuine ‘second edition’ (for the same market as the original, as opposed to translations for other markets) and my first ever hardback book. It looks really great – packed with informative graphics and colourful photographs. I had very little to do with this, which was all done by the book-packaging professionals at UniPress. My only input was to update the text in a few places and offer suggestions for some of the image captions.

The book shown in the above photo is the ‘British and Commonwealth’ edition published by Icon Books, which is out now – details here. I believe UniPress are also doing a separate North American edition, which should be out in May 2023.

21 Sep 2019

Out now: Astrobiology

This is my third contribution to the Hot Science series from Icon Books, after Destination Mars and Cosmic Impact. The publishers decided on the book’s title (and even advertised it online) before I was assigned to the project, which was a new experience for me. And it was more than a little daunting that the title contains “biology” – a subject I know next to nothing about. When I took the book on, I planned to focus mainly on the “astro” part – my comfort zone – but in writing it I got more enthusiastic about the biology side, which ended up filling a fair chunk of the book after all.

Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe is available from all the usual places – for example Amazon.com or Amazon UK – both as a paperback and an ebook. Here is the back-cover blurb:

Extraterrestrial life is a common theme in science fiction, but is it a serious prospect in the real world? Astrobiology is the emerging field of science that seeks to answer this question.

The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. Astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale ‘signatures’ it produces, and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the Solar System or on the many exoplanets now being discovered by the Kepler and TESS missions.

Along the way the book addresses key questions such as the riddle of Fermi’s paradox (‘Where is everybody?’) and the crucial role of DNA and water – they’re essential to ‘life as we know it’, but is the same true of alien life? And the really big question: when we eventually find extraterrestrials, will they be friendly or hostile?

23 Jul 201923 Jul 2019

Researching Life on Other Worlds

My next book, due to be published in September, is on the subject of Astrobiology. It’s my third contribution to the Hot Science series from Icon Books, after Destination Mars (July 2017) and Cosmic Impact (Feb 2019).

For most of my previous books, while I’ve been writing them I’ve done a blog post showing some of the research material I’ve been using. I forgot to do that for this one, so I’ll do it now the book is on its way to the printers.

Actually only 8 of the 9 books pictured above actually qualify as “research”. The one in the middle of the top row – Life on Other Worlds by Sir Harold Spencer Jones – is something I only acquired a couple of days ago –for 50 pence from a flea market. It was originally written in 1940, which must make it one of the earliest books ever written on the subject. My copy is a second edition from 1952 – but that’s still prehistory as far as astrobiology is concerned.

Interestingly, most of the books pictured are ones that I’ve reviewed. The four books on the bottom row, and the one at the right-hand end of the top row, are review copies that Fortean Times sent me. My favourite of them, and the most unusual, is The Great Silence – which I also reviewed on Brian Clegg’s Popular Science blog. The two books with “Aliens” in the title are remaindered copies I got from The Works – and found interesting enough to review on Brian’s site. So the only thing I actually bought as research for my own book is What Does a Martian Look Like? – a rather scruffy copy I found on eBay.