Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

by Avi Loeb

Overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

“Provocative and thrilling ... Loeb asks us to think big and to expect the unexpected.”
—Alan Lightman, New York Times bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

Harvard’s top astronomer lays out his controversial theory that our solar system was recently visited by advanced alien technology from a distant star.

In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization.
 
In Extraterrestrial, Loeb takes readers inside the thrilling story of the first interstellar visitor to be spotted in our solar system. He outlines his controversial theory and its profound implications: for science, for religion, and for the future of our species and our planet. A mind-bending journey through the furthest reaches of science, space-time, and the human imagination, Extraterrestrial challenges readers to aim for the stars—and to think critically about what’s out there, no matter how strange it seems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358278146
Publisher:	HMH Books
Publication date:	01/26/2021
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	3,859
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ABRAHAM (AVI) LOEB is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, where he chairs the astronomy department and directs the Black Hole Initiative. He chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative and the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies.

Editorial Reviews

11/09/2020

Intelligent life is out there—or at least its cast-off equipment is­—and it’s time earthlings dealt with it, argues Harvard physicist Loeb (The First Galaxies in the Universe) in this contentious manifesto. The author’s concerns are twofold: first, he believes there is evidence for extraterrestrial life. Second, he posits that humans aren’t prepared to accept that fact. This survey, then, is a brief on alien life and its implications for humanity. Loeb bases his case on ‘Oumuamua, an interstellar object that baffled scientists when it appeared in 2017. Based on its shape, brightness, and trajectory, Loeb proposes it could be a reflective light sail made by extraterrestrial life. While his advice on how to find inhabited exoplanets is often ingenious (“one can distinguish an artificial source of light by the way it dims as it recedes from us”), less cogent is his attack on astronomical orthodoxy, which he considers too dismissive of research into extraterrestrial intelligence. He suggests that finding extraterrestrial life will help cure human arrogance and self-destructiveness: aliens, he contends, are likely to be “superior being” who can reveal “the meaning of life,” though he also speculates they could turn out to be existentialists who believe that “life is absurd.” Loeb’s thought-provoking work of popular science will entertain those who wonder if humans are alone in the universe. Photos. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

New York Times Bestseller
Wall Street Journal Bestseller
Publishers Weekly Bestseller
Publishers Marketplace 2020 Buzz Book

“In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system. Part graceful memoir and part plea for keeping an open mind about the possibilities of what is out there in the universe—in particular, life. Loeb is one of the more imaginative and articulate scientists around . . . Half memoir, half soaring monologue.”
—The New York Times

"Well-written and compelling."
—Forbes

"Loeb makes a persuasive scientific argument about ‘Oumuamua’s otherworldly origins."
—New York Magazine

“A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Ingenious . . . Loeb’s thought-provoking work of popular science will entertain those who wonder if humans are alone in the universe.” 
—Publishers Weekly

“Part survey of thrilling new discoveries, part memoir of a restless intellect and part polemical airing of grievances, this curious volume from Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb challenges readers--and Loeb's contemporaries in the sciences--to take seriously the likelihood that we are not alone in the universe.”
—Shelf Awareness

“It's good to be skeptical of audacious ideas. But it's also important to be open to audacious possibilities, and to think through their ramifications. Avi Loeb's sumptuously written book will provoke you to think about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe in new and stimulating ways.”
—Sean Carroll, New York Times bestselling author of Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,’ Hamlet tells Horatio. In this passionately argued, visionary book, astrophysicist Avi Loeb urges us to abandon the arrogant fantasy that we are the only sentient life form in the universe. He proposes that ‘Oumaumua, an anomalous interstellar object first sighted on October 19, 2017, was a piece of extraterrestrial technological equipment. The clues, as Loeb carefully reviews them, are fascinating, and still more are his arguments for what they might reveal to us about our own brilliant, blinkered, and quite possibly doomed civilization.”
—Stephen Greenblatt, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

“In this well written and accessible book, a leading astronomer gives a provocative and thrilling account of the search for extraterrestrial  intelligence, with emphasis on his own imaginative ideas. Above all, Professor Loeb asks us to think big and to expect the unexpected.”
—Alan Lightman, New York Times bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

“An exciting and eloquent case that we might have seen a sign of intelligent life near Earth—and that we should search further. As a world-renowned scientist and an innovative thinker, Avi Loeb opens your mind to some of the most important questions facing us as humans, and convinces you that scientific curiosity is key to our future success.”
—Anne Wojcicki, CEO and co-founder, 23andMe

From the Publisher

2020-09-24
Have we been visited by aliens?

Harvard astronomer Loeb believes we have, basing his assertion on “evidence…collected over eleven days, starting on October 19, 2017,” at a Hawaiian observatory. That’s when the author, the director of the Black Hole Initiative and the Institute for Theory and Computation, and his fellow scientists unexpectedly observed the “first known interstellar visitor.” It was a small object: “highly luminous, oddly tumbling, with a 91 percent probability of being disk-shaped.” Moving roughly 58,900 miles per second, it “passed through our solar system and, without visible outgassing, smoothly accelerated from a path that deviated from the force of the sun’s gravity alone.” Loeb and his colleagues named it “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word that roughly translates to scout. Though the scientific debate continues, writes the author, “the likelihood of scientists ever observing demonstrable proof is very remote.” Loeb meticulously analyzes the evidence they have so far: No “confirmed interstellar object had ever been observed in our solar system,” and it wasn’t a comet or asteroid. Further research revealed that it rotated every eight hours and was approximately 100 yards long and less than 10 yards wide. Its unique, “smooth and steady” acceleration and deviation from the sun led the author to a hypothesis that charmed the media but generated “intense controversy and pushback” from other scientists. Loeb also delves into the object’s spin rate, unchanging rotation, and the possibility that it might be another civilization’s space hardware. After all, we’ve been “junking-up” space for years. Loeb issues a clarion call for a team of astro-archaeologists to increase research into possible alien life; unfortunately, the “conservative scientific community” has always fought against such research. It’s hard to argue with the author’s claim that it’s the “height of arrogance to contend that we are unique,” and he even speculates that life on Earth may be of Martian or interstellar origin.

A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.

Kirkus Reviews

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