REACHING INTO THE UNIVERSE

A quick progress report on humanity’s study of our own solar neighborhood and those beyond.

Nardo provides a succinct justification for exploring outer space. “Earth is doomed,” he writes—and considering the astronomical evidence of cosmic disasters everywhere and the multiple “extinction events” our own planet has already experienced, he concludes that our space programs are “not merely academic pursuits.” Startled readers are likely to focus with some attention on his subsequent accounts of the current and next generations of space telescopes; of the massive fireballs over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908 and the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013; of landers that have been or are slated to be sent to Mars; and of probes to the outer moons, several of which have turned out to feature subsurface oceans and so may, at least theoretically, support life. The prospect of commercial space flight escapes mention, and his perfunctory glances at galaxies, black holes, exoplanets, and the challenges of actually living in space or on other worlds are as much filler as the sparse assortment of stock photos and images highlighted by random star fields, an astronaut aboard the ISS, and an Indonesian nickel mine. Still, there’s a sense of urgency here that comes through, however limited the author’s scope and judicious his tone.

More a call to (continued) action than a well-balanced survey, but reasonably up to date.