The Universe Is Not A Collection Of

Many Billions Of Years Will Elapse Before The Smallest, Youngest Stars Complete Their Nuclear Burning And Shrink Into White Dwarfs. But With Slow, Agonizing Finality Perpetual Night Will Surely Fall.

Very, Very Slowly, The Dwarf Remnants Of What Was Once Our Mighty Sun Will Cool And Dim, Until It Embarks On Its Final Metamorphosis, Gradually Solidifying Into A Crystal Of Extraordinary Rigidity. Eventually It Will Fade Out Completely, Merging Quietly Into The Blackness Of Space.

In The 1990s I Began To Study The Prospects That Life Could Spread From Mars To Earth Or Maybe Earth To Mars And That Maybe Life Began On Mars And Came To Earth, And That Idea Seemed To Have A Lot Of Traction And Is Now Accepted As Very Plausible.

I Suppose My Interest In Looking For Life Elsewhere In The Universe Really Dates Back To My Teens. What Teenager Doesn't Look Up At The Sky At Night And Think Am I Alone In The Universe? Well Most People Get Over It, But I Never Did And Though I Made A Career More In Physics And Cosmology Than Astrobiology I've Always Had A Soft Spot For The Subject Of Life Because It Does Seem So Mysterious.

Science Can Proceed Only If The Scientist Adopts An Essentially Theological Worldview. ..even The Most Atheistic Scientist Accepts As An Act Of Faith The Existence Of A Law-like Order In Nature That Is At Least In Part Comprehensible To Us.