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Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe Paperback – December 10, 2003

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 366 ratings
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What determines whether complex life will arise on a planet, or even any life at all? Questions such as these are investigated in this groundbreaking book. In doing so, the authors synthesize information from astronomy, biology, and paleontology, and apply it to what we know about the rise of life on Earth and to what could possibly happen elsewhere in the universe. Everyone who has been thrilled by the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and the indications of life on Mars and the Jovian moon Europa will be fascinated by Rare Earth, and its implications for those who look to the heavens for companionship.
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  1. Print length
    372 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Copernicus
  4. Publication date
    December 10, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    6.1 x 0.83 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0387952896
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0387952895
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...likely to cause a revolution in thinking..."
The New York Times

"...[the book] has hit the world of astrobiologists like a killer asteroid..."
Newsday (New York)

"...a sobering and valuable perspective..."
Science

"...a startling new hypothesis..."
Library Journal

"...Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee offer a powerful argument..."
The Economist
"...provocative, significant, and sweeping..."
Northwest Science & Technology

"...a stellar example of clear writing..."
American Scientist

About the Author

Peter D. Ward is Professor of Geological Sciences and Curator of Paleontology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Copernicus (December 10, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 372 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0387952896
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0387952895
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.51 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 0.83 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 366 ratings

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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
366 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

William
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2024
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Well written with clear, frank, sometimes startling information and copious notes
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Tim F. Martin
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding popular astronomy and paleontology writing
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2005
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_Rare Earth_ by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee is an excellent, thorough, and thought provoking work analyzing the possibility of life on other worlds. Ward, a noted paleontologist, and Brownlee, an astronomer, sought to challenge the widespread notion that complex, even intelligent, life is common in the universe. This bias towards believing in intelligent life elsewhere is partly thanks to wishful thinking (aided by works of science fiction) and partly from the famous Drake Equation put forth by astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan. This equation, one designed to estimate the number of advanced civilizations present in our galaxy, was based on educated guesses on how many planets there were in our galaxy, how many of those might harbor life, and of those what percentage advanced to become homes of civilized life forms. Using the best estimates at the time, Drake and Sagan in 1974 postulated that a million civilizations may exist in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and as our galaxy is but one of hundreds of millions of galaxies, according to them the number of intelligent alien species must be staggering.

Ward and Brownlee did not think that credible, and put forth an alternative theory, the Rare Earth Hypothesis, using information gathered over the years in paleontology, geology, climatology, and astronomy. In a nutshell, they believe that microbial life is very common in the universe, perhaps more common than even Drake and Sagan anticipated, while complex life - animals and higher plants - is quite rare.

As evidence exists that life first appeared on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, almost simultaneously with the end of heavy bombardment from outer space and the lowering of surface temperatures below the boiling point of water, it is possible that life could form very early on a planet, that it can and quite possibly will evolve on any planet if conditions are at least just barely tolerable. Additionally, with evidence that on Earth there are microbes that can survive temperatures above boiling water, as much as 169 degrees Celsius (and maybe up to 200), deep in the Earth's crust or in hydrothermal deep sea vents (as well as life found living in sea ice and snow), it would appear that microorganisms have very wide tolerances for a range of planetary conditions. Given that many believe life may have first evolved deep underground or deep beneath the sea, the authors feel that microorganisms may be quite common, perhaps even present elsewhere in our own solar system.

Conversely, the conditions that allow animal and advanced plant life to develop (the authors largely concentrate on animals) are "rare if not unique," Earth being a "bastion of animals amid a sea of microbe-infested worlds." Ward and Brownlee have composed a long list of "low-probability" events or conditions that are necessary for the formation of animal life.

I had long been familiar with the concept that Earth was lucky to be at just the right distance from its star, in the habitable zone, a region where heat from the sun provides a planetary surface temperature at which water neither freezes nor boils (the authors later narrow this concept to the animal habitable zone, the range of distances where not only is it possible for an Earth-like planet to have liquid surface water but also to maintain average global temperatures of less than 50 degree Celsius, as that is believed the upper limit at which animal life can exist). What was new to me was the concept of the galactic habitable zone, the notion being that complex life can only develop (and survive) on a planet in the right neighborhood of the galaxy basically, and indeed the right type of galaxy period. Earth-life as we know it could not arise at all if the sun was in a globular cluster, an elliptical galaxy, or a small galaxy, as most if not all stars in these formations are too metal-poor and often are too hot for life on inner planets. In systems low in metals (elements other than hydrogen and helium), there would not be enough solid matter to form a planet the size of Earth and even if one formed it would lack the metals needed to produce either magnetic fields or the internal heat sources to drive plate tectonics.

Even in suitable galaxies an Earth-like planet could not exist in its center, as that is a region with many energetic processes that could eliminate life altogether; the high density of stars in the center make the danger of supernovae significant (our sun and planet are protected simply by the relative scarcity of stars around us). Other stellar members, such as neutron stars called magnetars, are considerably more common in the center (which can emit vast amounts of lethal X-rays and gamma rays). Nor could Earth exist at the galactic edge, as that region is too metal poor.

The authors argued that plate tectonics is vital to the development of animal life for a variety of reasons. It promotes high levels of biodiversity, a major defense against mass extinctions; it provides the planet with a global thermostat by recycling chemicals essential in keeping the volume of carbon dioxide relatively uniform (and thus enabling liquid water to remain on a planet's surface); it creates the continents (not only vital for biodiversity purposes but also in terms of weathering and as source of marine nutrients); and it provides a magnetic field, a defense against lethal cosmic radiation and the loss of an atmosphere.

There are a number of other factors that the authors look at; among them the importance of the Moon (extremely vital but perhaps a very rare thing for one of that size to exist around a terrestrial planet), the importance of a stable Jupiter at the right distance from Earth, and several perhaps unique events in Earth's history, such as Snowball Earth episodes and the Cambrian Explosion, vital events in the evolution of life that might be very unlikely to occur on an alien planet.
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David J. Kreiter
4.0 out of 5 stars Simple life in the Universe Ubiquitous--Complex Life Rare
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2020
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During the middle-ages, under the Ptolemaic system, it was widely believed that the stars and planets revolved around our flat-earth and we humans were the crowning glory of creation. That notion began to unravel when in 1514 Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model in which the planets move around the sun in perfect circle, later revised by Johannes Kepler who showed that the planets’ orbits trace out ellipses around the sun. These revelations were just the beginning of the Copernican Principle of mediocrity that has flourished ever since, portending that we live on an average planet, rotating around an average star, in an average galaxy, one among billions of such galaxies in the vast universe. But are these assumptions true? Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee weave a convincing argument that this is not the case.

Ward and Brownlee maintain that our good fortune of being on this particular rare planet, in a location in the habitable zone of our solar system often referred to at the Goldie Locks Zone where temperatures are not too hot and not too cold, as well as our favorable position in our galaxy, provide the unique and necessary condition to evolve complex life.

They believe that microbial life could be ubiquitous throughout the universe because simple organisms can exist in very harsh environments; however, the evolution of larger, more fragile, complex life requires very special conditions that persist for billions of years. These special conditions do not seem to be common in other parts of the universe.

We often hear that we are an average planet orbiting an average star, but this is not factual. Approximately 95% of all stars are less massive than our sun, and their habitable zones are closer to their stars, which is not at all favorable for life, because as planets get closer to their suns, the gravitation tidal effects induce synchronous rotation in which one side of the planet always faces the star it orbits. Planets that are tidally locked to their stars create a situation where the dark side of the planet gets so cold that it freezes the atmosphere, while the side facing its star gets extremely hot, making these planets uninhabitable for complex life.

Stars that are more massive than our sun have a more distant habitable zone than we see in our solar system, but it is doubtful that planets in such a zone could support complex life because stars that are 50% more massive than our sun enter the red-giant stage, increasing their brightness a thousand-fold after only 2 billion years. Additionally, massive stars are hotter and radiate substantially more ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light is very detrimental to biological molecules and can strip away an earth-like atmosphere.

Only 6% of all galaxies in the universe are spiral galaxies like ours, so we are once again very fortunate because other galaxies are unlikely to have solar systems that could support life.

Elliptical galaxies are regions with little dust and exhibit little new star formation. They are nearly as old as the universe itself and have a low abundance of heavy elements because all of the elements required for life such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, sodium, iron, and copper are created in stars. These elements were not created in the Big Bang and were not in abundance for at least 2 billion years after the birth of the universe.

Other regions of the universe with a high volume of stars, such as open star clusters and globular star clusters, are also unlikely to harbor planets with life, according to the authors. Open clusters are too young and have not yet produced heavy elements. Globular clusters are too dense with stars in a given amount of space, have too much radiation and gravitational disturbance to form a stable solar system, are low in heavier elements required for life, and have a high probability of a neighboring star going supernova sterilizing any planet within one light year and making conditions for life untenable in stars within 30 light years.

Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, make a good case for the rarity of complex life in the universe, and in the process have narrowed the scope of the search for planets that have some probability of harboring complex life.

We should first look for spiral galaxies similar to our Milky Way Galaxy belonging to a very small class of about six galaxies out of every hundred in the universe. As we saw, other types of galaxies are probably not conducive to life. Next, we should search the band of stars in a region about 15,000 to 30,000 light years from the galaxy’s center, the habitable zone of the galaxy, and then find stars in that band that are similar to our sun. Out of every one hundred candidates, we should find about five. From those stars we should try to find planets in the habitable zone of each of those stars. Since the star’s mass will be similar to our sun, the habitable zone should be about the same distance from the star as our planet is from the sun. Next, we should do a spectral analysis of the planet’s atmosphere. We would not be able to look directly for Nitrogen and Oxygen because they do not produce detectable absorption bands, but the detection of ozone, which has a strong detectable wavelength absorption band, would indicate the presence of oxygen.

This book was sobering for those of us who believe that we are, or have been visited by extraterrestrials. The information contained within does not rule out the possibility that intelligent life exists in other regions of the universe; it only restricts the places where it could exist; that is, if it is even possible to predict such a thing. Physicist Paul Davies once said that at some point in the future we might have enough knowledge of the universe to predict fairly accurately the number of habitable planets in the universe, but until we know what life is, we can make no predictions as to how many planets are actually inhabited. We still don’t know how life arose on this planet.

In addition, though most of the authors assumptions might be considered to be irrefutable, some of their assumptions have recently been challenged by other researchers. Still, they have made a good case for the rarity of complex life in the universe. But rare does not mean nonexistent. Even if we limit our search for stars in the habitable zone of our own galaxy between 15,000 and 35,000 light years from its center, and in that region, limit our search to the 5% of stars that are similar to our sun, in a galaxy 200,000 light years in diameter, made up of 200 billion stars and at least as many planets, roughly estimated, that still leaves us with 1.5 billion stars and about an equal number of planets that could support complex life in our galaxy alone.
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Andie
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente !!!
Reviewed in Mexico on November 12, 2022
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Hipótesis sustentada con evidencia científica disponible en ese momento, punto de referencia también en la actualidad (con ciertas actualizaciones).
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Client d'Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in France on October 13, 2023
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Un excellent livre, à lire petit à petit car il reste assez complexe mais très bien écrit
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Mr C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2019
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It's a bit dated now but it's still a classic. A truly mind boggling tour of all the main factors that enabled complex life to evolve on Earth, and therefore why it will be rare in the Universe.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on October 1, 2017
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Really good
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Monishv158
5.0 out of 5 stars Rare Earth is brilliant.
Reviewed in India on October 1, 2017
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Earth is rare. (I agree)
Complex life here is unique. (Yes but contingent on evolutionary accidents)
We may blow our trumpet for a while (Hopefully longer than it seems)
But will anyone answer? (Maybe not)
However, the songs of cells (Bacterial or otherwise) will.
resound in the universe till the end (or a beginning)

The books thesis is many-sided, wonderfully argued and supported by evidence
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