Within the next 20 years, human beings could discover life on other planets.
It was this startling prediction—and the subsequent realization that kids sitting in elementary school classrooms today would be the first generation to know where exactly these extraterrestrials live—that stoked David Aguilar’s imagination.
In his latest children’s book, Alien Worlds, Aguilar presents eight worlds, all modeled after Earth-like planets and moons that actually exist in the Milky Way galaxy. Aguilar projects different temperature, gravity, light and water conditions onto these planets—all educated inferences based on the many stages Earth has gone through in its history. In “Ocean World,” for example, the planet’s surface is predominantly water, much like Earth was 450 million years ago, whereas the desert-like “Dying World,” with temperatures ranging from 85 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, is a glimpse at what Earth could be like about one and a half billion years from now.
Then, Aguilar addresses the bigger question: what will the inhabitants of these worlds look like?
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-will-extraterrestrial-life-look-180950029/#loIo363PDu87YRfo.99
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Within the next 20 years, human beings could discover life on other planets.
It was this startling prediction—and the subsequent realization that kids sitting in elementary school classrooms today would be the first generation to know where exactly these extraterrestrials live—that stoked David Aguilar’s imagination.
In his latest children’s book, Alien Worlds, Aguilar presents eight worlds, all modeled after Earth-like planets and moons that actually exist in the Milky Way galaxy. Aguilar projects different temperature, gravity, light and water conditions onto these planets—all educated inferences based on the many stages Earth has gone through in its history. In “Ocean World,” for example, the planet’s surface is predominantly water, much like Earth was 450 million years ago, whereas the desert-like “Dying World,” with temperatures ranging from 85 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, is a glimpse at what Earth could be like about one and a half billion years from now.
Then, Aguilar addresses the bigger question: what will the inhabitants of these worlds look like?