Finding out whether we’re alone in the Universe

Amazon.com

What's the most important thing that we as a now-global society could do? The updated equivalent of building the Library of Alexandria or patronizing the Renaissance?

To Lee Billings, author of the new book Five Billion Years of Solitude, the answer seems to be "discover that there's life on another planet." And despite the myriad of details he describes that complicate the search, it appears that we are just on the cusp of being able to make such a discovery.

We can now build the sort of space-based observatories that could spot signs of chemistry in the atmosphere of exoplanets—chemistry that would be a persuasive indication that there's life on the surface below. But much to the author's frustration, politics—both in terms of government funding for science and in terms of turf wars within the scientific community—are blocking the way.