Although briefly mentioned in this section, the transformation of physicists into biologists is a fascinating story. For an overview, see M. F. Perutz, “Physics and the Riddle of Life,” Nature 326 (1987): 555–58; and one of the original articles exploring the topic, by the father of quantum physics, Niels Bohr, “Light and Life,” Nature (March 25, 1933): 421–59. One of the most famous of these reflections is found in Erwin Schrödinger's lectures turned book, What Is Life? The Physical Aspects of the Living Cell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943).
Harold Urey's thoughts on how Earth's astrophysical context shaped its early atmosphere are outlined in his “On the Early Chemical History of the Earth and the Origin of Life,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 38 (1952): 351–63.
Stanley Miller's landmark paper is his “A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions,” Science 117 (May 15, 1953): 528–29.
For reflection on the Miller-Urey experiment and its contemporary and historical assessment, see Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano, “Prebiotic Soup—Revisiting the Miller Experiment,” Science 300 (May 2, 2003): 746; “Life and a Glass Earth,” New York Times, May 17, 1953; Adam P. Johnson et al., “The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment,” Science 322 (October 17, 2008): 404; Jennifer Evans, “Miller-Urey Amino Acids, circa 1953,” Scientist 23, no. 1 (2009): 72; and Eric T. Parker et al., “Primordial Synthesis of Amines and Amino Acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-Rich Spark Discharge Experiment,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 21, 2011, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/14/1019191108.full.pdf+html.
For current thinking on the composition of the Earth's early atmosphere, see Dustin Trail, E. Bruce Watson, and Nicholas D. Tailby, “The Oxidation State of Hadean Magmas and Implications for Early Earth's Atmosphere,” Nature 480 (December 1, 2011): 79–82.
Liftoff for Exobiology
The overview perspective for this section was drawn from Strick, “Creating a Cosmic Discipline,” pp. 131–80; and Michel Morange, “Fifty Years Ago: The Beginnings of Exobiology,” Journal of Biosciences 32, no. 6 (September 2007): 1083–87.
Information on Joshua Lederberg and J. B. S. Haldane is in part from “The Joshua Lederberg Papers,” Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine, http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/BB/ (accessed March 17, 2011); and Fry, “Origins of Research into the Origins of Life,” pp. 24–28.
Lederberg's two seminal papers outlining the new science of exobiology are Joshua Lederberg, “Exobiology: Approaches to Life beyond the Earth,” Science 132, no. 3424 (1960): 393–99; and Joshua Lederberg and Dean B. Cowie, “Moondust,” Science 127, no. 3313 (June 27, 1958): 1473–75.
Sources of Direct Quotations by Page
(page 109) “It is a slightly arresting notion…” Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (New York: Broadway Books, 2003), p. 1.
(page 111) “The chief defect…” Peretó, Bada, and Lazcano, “Charles Darwin and the Origin of Life,” p. 396.
(page 111) “It is mere rubbish…” Ibid., p. 399.
(page 115) “landmark for discussion…” Malissoff, “How Did Life Begin on This Strange Planet?” p. 64.
(page 115) “Even in our own time…” Oparin, Origin of Life, p. 2.
(page 116) “Art cannot combine…” Lazcano and Bada, “Stanley L. Miller (1930–2007),” p. 374.
(page 118) “Never will the doctrine…” Cohn, “Life and Times of Louis Pasteur.”
(page 119) “pit of vitalist conceptions,” Oparin, Origin of Life, p. 30.
(page 119) “The problem of the origin…” Oparin, “Introductory Address,” p. 2.
(page 120) “we do not hesitate…” Huxley, “On the Physical Basis of Life,” p. 16.
(page 120) “It is remarkable that…” William Huggins and W. A. Miller, “On the Spectra of Some of the Fixed Stars,” Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 154 (1864): 434.
(page 121) “The carbon atom in…” Oparin, Origin of Life, p. 136.
(page 122) “It must be understood…” Ibid., p. 246.
(page 122) “All these difficulties…” Ibid., p. 60.
(page 122) “However strange this…” Ibid., p. 63.
(page 126) “that experimentation on the…” Urey, “On the Early Chemical History,” p. 362.
(page 128) “made chemical history…” “Life and a Glass Earth.”
(page 129) “if God didn't do…” Lazcano and Bada, “Stanley L. Miller (1930–2007),” p. 376.
(page 132) “Since the sending of rockets…” Lederberg and Cowie, “Moondust.”
(pages 132–33) “Twenty-five centuries of…” Lederberg, “Exobiology,” p. 394.
(page 133) “The dynamics of celestial bodies…” Ibid.
CHAPTER 5. DUST TO DIAMONDS
Several books and articles served as valuable background resources to provide a historical and broad view: James B. Kaler, Cosmic Clouds: Birth, Death, and Recycling in the Galaxy (New York: Scientific American Library, 1997); Peter Martin, Cosmic Dust: It's Impact on Astronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Bruce T. Draine, “Interstellar Dust Grains,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 41 (2003): 241–89; and, finally, the excellent, detailed, and broad perspective offered by the contributors to Daniel Apai and Dante S. Lauretta, eds., Protoplanetary Dust: Astrophysical and Cosmochemical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); see, in particular, the chapter by Hans-Peter Gail and Peter Hoppe, “The Origins of Protoplanetary Dust and the Formation of Accretion Disks.”
Sources by Sections
The Original Dark Matter
My visit to Grasslands National Park was in July 2010. For information on this park, Canada's darkest dark-sky preserve, see “Grasslands National Park,” Parks Canada, http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/sk/grasslands/index.aspx.
A New Land between the Stars
Two of the key scientific papers that brought awareness to the cosmos' dusty nature are R. F. Sanford, “On Some Relations of the Spiral Nebulae to the Milky Way,” Lick Observatory Bulletin, no. 297 (1917): 80–91; and Harold Julius Trumpler, “Preliminary Results on the Distances, Dimensions and Space Distribution of Open Star Clusters,” Lick Observatory Bulletin, no. 420 (1930): 154–88. I learned about the “Hubble of cosmic dust” in Harold F. Weaver, “Harold Julius Trumpler: 1886–1956,” Biographical Memoirs, vol. 78 (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000), pp. 3–8.
Fred Hoyle's perspective on dust is drawn from his science-fiction book: Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud (New York: Signet Books, 1957); from his biographer: Jane Gregory, Fred Hoyle's Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and from his classic article describing stardust production: Fred Hoyle and N. C. Wickramasinghe, “On Graphite Particles as Interstellar Grains,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 124 (1962). See also N. C. Wickramasinghe, “Interstellar Grains: 50 Years On,” Journal of Cosmology (December 2011), available online at http://journalofcosmology.com/JoC16pdfs/INTERSTELLAR%20GRAINS%20Final.pdf (accessed May 3, 2012).
Seeing with Stardust Eyes
For an understanding of the dawn of infrared astronomy, see Monica Salomone and Lars Lindberg Christensen, The Infrared Revolution: Unveiling the Hidden Universe (Paris: European Space Agency, Public Relations Division, 2000); Frank J. Low, G. H. Rieke, and R. D. Gehrz, “The Beginning of Modern Infrared Astronomy,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 45 (2007): 43–75; and “Discovering Infrared—The Herschel Experiment,” Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/outreach/Edu/Herschel/herschel.html (accessed March 22, 2012).
For background on the Spitzer Space Telescope, see two articles by its chief scientist, Michael Werner: Michael Werner, “Spitzer's Cold Look at Space,” American Scientist 97 (November–December 2009): 58–68; and Michael Werner et al., “First Fruits of the Spitzer Space Telescope,” Annual Review in Astronomy and Astrophysics 44 (May 2006): 269–321.
For overview
information on Spitzer, see the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's excellent website at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/.
The Cold and Dirty Cosmos
The relationship between dust and star formation draws on Richard B. Larson, “Historical Perspective on Computational Star Formation,” in J. Alves et al., eds., Computational Star Formation, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Symposium, no. 270 (2011); Bart Bok and Edith F. Reilly, “Small Dark Nebulae,” Astrophysical Journal 105 (1947): 255–57; Joao Lin Yun and Dan P. Clemens, “Star Formation in Small Globules—Bart Bok was Correct,” Astrophysical Journal 365 (December 20, 1990): L73–76; Martin Harwit, “Neugebauer, Martz, & Leighton's Observations of Extremely Cool Stars,” Astrophysical Journal, centennial issue 525C (1999): 1063–64; and Ken Croswell, The Lives of Stars (Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill, 2009).
The Dusty Missing Link
For information on the cosmos' first dust, I drew on Eli Dwek and Isabelle Cherchneff, “The Origin of Dust in the Early Universe: Probing the Star Formation History of Galaxies by Their Dust Content,” Astrophysical Journal 727 (2011); Anja C. Andersen, “In the Beginning: The Origin of Dust,” in Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun: Proceedings of the 15th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun, AIP Conference Proceedings 1094 (2009): 13–22; and G. C. Sloan et al., “Dust Formation in a Galaxy with Primitive Abundances,” Science 323 (January 16, 2009): 353–55.
For examples of dust production by various types of stars and cosmic dust's interstellar journey, I used Robert Fesen et al., “The Expansion Asymmetry and Age of the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant,” Astrophysical Journal 645, no. 1 (July 2006): 283–92; “10,000 Earths' Worth of Fresh Dust Found Near Star Explosion,” “Spitzer,” NASA, December 20, 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20071220.html (accessed December 19, 2011); and P. Kervella et al., “The Close Circumstellar Environment of Betelgeuse. II. Diffraction-Limited Spectro-Imaging from 7.76 to 19.50 μm with VLT/VISIR,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 531 (July 2011): A117–27.
For information on astromineralogy, I drew on the Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for mineral: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mineral (accessed August 2, 2011); Ernest H. Nickel, “The Definition of a Mineral,” Canadian Mineralogist 33, no. 3 (June 1995): 689–90; Robert Hazen, “Evolution of Minerals,” Scientific American (March 2010): 58–65; “Spitzer Sees Crystal ‘Rain’ in Outer Clouds of Infant Star” (May 26, 2011), “Spitzer,” NASA, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20110526.html (accessed December 19, 2011); and Anja C. Andersen, “Spectral Features of Presolar Diamonds in the Laboratory and in Carbon Star Atmospheres,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 330 (1998): 1080–90.
Please see http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1949-ssc2008-15a-Spitzer-Reveals-Stellar-Family-Tree-, for Michael Werner's Continents of Creation image by Spitzer.
Sources of Direct Quotations by Page
(page 135) “We now know that…” Kaler, Cosmic Clouds, p. 242.
(Page 138) “a shining fluid of a nature…” Ibid., p. 11.
(page 138) “whatever it might be.” Sanford, “On Some Relations of the Spiral Nebulae,” p. 90.
CHAPTER 6. THE COSMOS GOES GREEN
Sources by Sections
Tuning In to Molecules and Radio Whispers from the Universe
The key reference on the history of radio astronomy and its role in the emergence of astrochemistry is by pioneering radio astronomer Gerrit L. Verschuur, in his The Invisible Universe: The Story of Radio Astronomy, 2nd ed. (New York: Springer, 2007). The US National Radio Astronomy Observatory also has an excellent website on the history of radio telescopes: http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy/radioastronomyhistory.
The discovery of the first interstellar molecules is recounted in Gerhard Herzberg, “Historical Remarks on the Discovery of Interstellar Molecules,” Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 82, no. 3 (1988): 115–27; and P. Swings, “The Pioneering Investigations in the Field of the Interstellar Molecules, 1935–1942,” Astrophysics and Space Science 55 (1978): 263–65.
Cosmic Water Man
Townes tells his own story in Charles Townes, How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Townes's key discovery papers are A. C. Cheung et al., “Detection of NH3 Molecules in the Interstellar Medium by Their Microwave Emissions,” Physical Review Letters 21, no. 25 (December 16, 1968): 1701–1705; and A. C. Cheung et al., “Detection of Water in Interstellar Regions by Its Microwave Radiation,” Nature 221 (February 15, 1969): 626–28. An overview of Townes's pioneering astrochemistry work is found in D. M. Rank, C. H. Townes, and W. J. Welch, “Interstellar Molecules and Dense Clouds,” Science 174 (December 10, 1971): 1083.
For information on water masers, see Violette Impellizzeri et al., “A Gravitationally Lensed Water Maser in the Early Universe,” Nature 456 (December 18, 2008): 927–29.
The Cosmic Sea
Two authoritative overview texts on cosmic water are Thérèse Encrenaz, Searching for Water in the Universe (Berlin: Springer-Praxis, 2007); and Thérèse Encrenaz, “Water in the Solar System,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 46 (2008): 57–87.
An excellent summary of the view of cosmic water provided in the infrared is A. Salama and M. Kessler, “ISO and Cosmic Water,” ESA Bulletin 104 (November 1, 2000): 30–38. Key references on the most recent discoveries in cosmic water, including in our Solar System, include “Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Water Reservoir,” NASA, Jet Propulsion Lab press release, July 22, 2011, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223 (accessed September 1, 2011); Kenneth Chang, “Evidence of Water beneath Moon's Stony Face,” New York Times, May 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/science/space/27moon.html; and Kenneth Chang, “Red Planet May Be Better Known as the Wet One,” New York Times, September 9, 2009.
Brad Scriber, “Water's Out There,” National Geographic, Water: A Special Issue, April 2010; “Recipe for Water: Just Add Starlight,” European Space Agency, September 2, 2010, http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMW76EODDG_index_0.html (accessed December 11, 2011); “Dusty Experiments Are Solving Interstellar Water Mystery,” Royal Astronomical Society press release (April 12, 2010); and F. Dulieu et al., “Experimental Evidence for Water Formation on Interstellar Dust Grains by Hydrogen and Oxygen Atoms,” Astronomy & Astrophysics (March 2009): A30–35.
Joining Heaven and Earth and Red Giants and White Dwarfs
A good overview of the complexity of interstellar chemistry is Eric Herbst and Ewine F. van Dishoeck, “Complex Organic Interstellar Molecules,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 47 (2009): 427–80.
Several of Ziurys's articles that provide an overview of her work include Lucy M. Ziurys, “Molecular Spectroscopy of Transient Species as Probe of Interstellar Chemistry” (PhD thesis, University of California–Berkeley, 1984); Lucy M. Ziurys, “The Chemistry in Circumstellar Envelopes of Evolved Stars: Following the Origin of the Elements to the Origin of Life,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103, no. 33 (August 15, 2006): 12274–79; and Lucy M. Ziurys et al., “Chemical Complexity in the Winds of Oxygen-Rich Supergiant Star VY Canis Majoris,” Nature 447 (June 2007): 1094–97.
The critical role of molecular clouds in star birth is described in a classic summary by Leo Blitz, “Giant Molecular Cloud Complexes in the Galaxy,” Scientific American 246, no. 4 (April 1982): 84–94. A key paper on the origins of molecules from dying stars is Sun Kwok, “The Synthesis of Organic and Inorganic Compounds in Evolved Stars,” Nature 430 (August 26, 2004): 985–91. The discovery of the first interstellar sugar is recounted in Jan Hollis et al., “Interstellar Glycolaldehyde: The First Sugar,” Astrophysical Journal 540 (September 10, 2000): L107–10.
The presence and role of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are summarized in C. Joblin and A. G. Tielens, eds., “PAHs and the Universe,” EAS Publications Series 46 (2011), particularly the following chapt
ers: A. G. Tielens, “25 Years of PAH Hypothesis,” pp. 4–7, and L. J. Allamandola, “PAHs and Astrobiology,” p. 306. See also PAHs researcher Lou Allamandola's NASA-Ames website https://astrobiology-beta.arc.nasa.gov/directory/people/allamandola-louis/ (accessed March 19, 2012).
For an overview of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs), see Peter J. Sarre, “The Diffuse Interstellar Bands: A Major Problem in Astronomical Spectroscopy,” Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy 238 (2006): 1–10.
Sources of Direct Quotations by Page
(page 159) “The surface of the Earth…” Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 5.
(page 162) “Our observations suggest…” Jan Hollis, e-mail message to author, June 20, 2008. See also: Lara Clemence and Jarrett Cohen, “Space Sugar's a Sweet Find,” NASA, February 7, 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/stargalaxies/interstellar_sugar.html (accessed June 19, 2012).
(page 163) “could not dream up…” Verschuur, Invisible Universe, p. 14.
(page 169) “Charlie, how could you…” Townes, How the Laser Happened, p. 156.
(page 191) “These observations have…” Rank, Townes, and Welch, “Interstellar Molecules and Dense Clouds,” p. 1083.
PART 3: THE LIVING COSMOS
CHAPTER 7: CATCHING STARDUST
Sources by Sections
The Space-Rock Education of Scott Sandford
In addition to my interview with Dr. Sandford, the following sources informed this section: S. G. Love and D. E. Brownlee, “A Direct Measurement of the Terrestrial Mass Accretion Rate of Cosmic Dust,” Science 262 (October 22, 1993): 550–53; Matthieu Gounelle, “The Asteroid-Comet Continuum: In Search of Lost Primitivity,” Elements 7 (September 2011): 29–34; and Vince Stricherz, “Like a Rock: New Mineral Named for UW Astronomer,” University of Washington press release, June 26, 2008, http://www.washington.edu/news/archive/id/42636 (accessed January 16, 2012).
The Stardust Revolution Page 34