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Meet the Neighbors: Life on Mars and How to Find It (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780241808306)
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Steven A. Benner
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Books
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Description
x'At last, a sensible and penetrating look at the possibility of life on Mars ... Bravo to Benner, one of the world's most accomplished chemists, for putting the possibility of extant Martian life back on the scientific agenda'
Paul Davies, author of Quantum 2.0
Are we alone in the universe? Mars has always seemed where we were likeliest to find the answer. Yet, since the Viking landers touched down in 1976, no mission has returned to the Martian surface to search directly for life living there now. Instead we're searching the moons of outer planets, or the atmospheres of planets many light years away. In Meet the Neighbors, pioneering astrobiochemist Steven A. Benner argues that this was a historic mistake. That we're looking in the wrong place. Drawing on the Viking archive and explaining how the scientific process failed, he re-examines the mission that first searched for extant Martian life and makes the provocative case that its results were misunderstood. In the decades that have followed, Mars science has focused on water, geology and past habitability, while the most direct question - is anything alive on Mars today? - has been pushed aside. Benner shows why Mars remains the most accessible place to discover a second origin of life, and why finding even microbial organisms there would transform our understanding of our place in the cosmos. He also asks a deeper question: what counts as life in the first place? From the chemistry that may give rise to living systems to "agnostic" tools capable of detecting unfamiliar biology, he lays out a bold and practical blueprint for the next phase of exploration. At once a scientific detective story, a challenge to decades of orthodoxy, and a lucid guide to one of humanity's biggest questions, Meet the Neighbors is the definitive, urgent brief on where to go, what to measure, and why the next discovery won't just change textbooks - it will rewrite our place in the universe.
Author: Steven A. Benner
ISBN-10: 0241808308
ISBN-13: 9780241808306
Publisher: Allen Lane
Language: English
Published: 09/29/2026
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
Paul Davies, author of Quantum 2.0
Are we alone in the universe? Mars has always seemed where we were likeliest to find the answer. Yet, since the Viking landers touched down in 1976, no mission has returned to the Martian surface to search directly for life living there now. Instead we're searching the moons of outer planets, or the atmospheres of planets many light years away. In Meet the Neighbors, pioneering astrobiochemist Steven A. Benner argues that this was a historic mistake. That we're looking in the wrong place. Drawing on the Viking archive and explaining how the scientific process failed, he re-examines the mission that first searched for extant Martian life and makes the provocative case that its results were misunderstood. In the decades that have followed, Mars science has focused on water, geology and past habitability, while the most direct question - is anything alive on Mars today? - has been pushed aside. Benner shows why Mars remains the most accessible place to discover a second origin of life, and why finding even microbial organisms there would transform our understanding of our place in the cosmos. He also asks a deeper question: what counts as life in the first place? From the chemistry that may give rise to living systems to "agnostic" tools capable of detecting unfamiliar biology, he lays out a bold and practical blueprint for the next phase of exploration. At once a scientific detective story, a challenge to decades of orthodoxy, and a lucid guide to one of humanity's biggest questions, Meet the Neighbors is the definitive, urgent brief on where to go, what to measure, and why the next discovery won't just change textbooks - it will rewrite our place in the universe.
Author: Steven A. Benner
ISBN-10: 0241808308
ISBN-13: 9780241808306
Publisher: Allen Lane
Language: English
Published: 09/29/2026
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
By Steven A. Benner
xSteven A. Benner is a pioneering chemist, synthetic biologist and storyteller whose career has taken him from Harvard to NASA, via ETH Zurich. Throughout he has helped reshape the modern definition of life and the search for it beyond Earth.
Founding Director and Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Benner helped found the fields of synthetic biology and paleogenetics. In 2023 he was awarded the Harold Urey Medal from the International Astrobiology Society for the study of the origin of life.
Founding Director and Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Benner helped found the fields of synthetic biology and paleogenetics. In 2023 he was awarded the Harold Urey Medal from the International Astrobiology Society for the study of the origin of life.
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