About this item
Twenty years ago, the search for planets--and life--outside the solar system was a job restricted to science fiction writers. It is now one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy, with thousands of these "exoplanets" discovered so far. The detection of these worlds has only been possible in the last decade, with the number of discoveries increasing enormously over the last year following the findings of the Kepler Space Telescope. These new worlds are more alien than anything in fiction. Planets larger than Jupiter with years lasting one week, planets circling the dead remains of stars, others with two suns lighting their skies or with no sun at all. These locations hint at Earth-sized worlds but with split hemispheres of perpetual day and night, waterworlds drowning under global oceans, and volcanic lava planets spewing seas of magma.
About the Author
Elizabeth Tasker is an astrophysicist and science communicator at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Tokyo. Her research focusses on how stars and planets are formed, using models to construct mini-universes in her computer. Originally from the UK, Elizabeth studied theoretical physics at Durham University before completing her doctorate in astrophysics at Oxford. She then hopped across the pond to build galaxies in any computer she was given time on in the USA and Canada. In 2011, she moved to Japan and now lives in the Tokyo area with her cat, Tallis. Her science writing has appeared in publications such as Scientific American, Astronomy Magazine, Nautilus, space.com and the Conversation. She is also a keen blogger, believing anything can make a great story from trips across the world to an average visit to the dentist. This world view was confirmed when she won the 'Leap Local' travel writing prize in 2010 for a essay on Japanese toilets. Her first book, 'The Planet Factory', was published in September 2017 (November 2017 in the USA) . It explores the formation of some of the craziest worlds we have discovered in our Solar System and beyond. By digging into the gritty details and dirty laundry of the planet hunting process, the Planet Factory aims to offer the tools to understand our newest discoveries as we perch on the brink of finding out how we on Earth truly came to be here.
