EXOPLANETS

The past few years have seen an incredible explosion in our knowledge of the universe. Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than two thousand exoplanets, or planets outside of our solar system. More and more exoplanets are being discovered all the time, and even more remarkable than the sheer number of exoplanets is their variety. In EXOPLANETS, physicists Summers and Trefil explore the unbelievable recent discoveries: planets revolving around pulsars, planets made entirely out of diamond, planets made entirely out of water, and some rogue planets that bounce from star to star and are not fixed in a set solar system. It turns out that our own comfortable Earth may in fact be an atypical planet.

This captivating book reveals the latest, greatest discoveries and argues that the incredible richness and complexity we are finding necessitates a change in the questions we ask and the mental paradigms we use. In short, we have to change how we think about the universe and our place in it, because it is stranger and more interesting than we can even begin to imagine.

With the recent detection of gravitational waves, the perennial debate over Pluto's classification and other evolving scientific developments in space, the book's release is timely and will increase the vast interest in what EXOPLANETS will reveal

MICHAEL E. SUMMERS is a planetary scientist and professor of physics at George Mason University. He serves on several space mission science teams (UARS, MAS, Space Shuttle, New Horizons, AIM, ARES, and Mars Airplane, among others) in the role of science planning and in the interpretation of spacecraft observations.

JAMES TREFIL is a professor of physics at George Mason University who has written more than 40 books on science for a general audience. His writing has won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science Westinghouse Science Journalism Award, and others.