From Stars to Life: A Quantitative Approach to Astrobiology

How did life originate? Is there life beyond Earth? What is the future of life on our planet? The rapidly growing multidisciplinary field of astrobiology deals with life's big questions. This text harnesses the authors' two decades' experience of teaching acclaimed courses in astrobiology, and adopts a novel quantitative approach toward this emergent discipline. It details the physical principles and chemical processes that have shaped the origins and distribution of molecules, stars, plane...