‘A mind-altering and exhilarating read’ Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk   ‘Of all the popular books on the search for life that are now being published, this one is quite special’ James L. Green, former NASA chief scientist Over the last few decades, space exploration has revolutionised our understanding of our place in the cosmos.We now know that there are many habitable environments within our solar system. Yet a profound question remains: are we alone in the universe? Nathalie A. Cabrol, leading astrobiologist and director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, takes us to the frontiers of the search for life.This book’s odyssey begins by searching for how life began on Earth in order to understand what’s necessary for life to exist elsewhere. What role did our Moon play? And could life on Mars, or another world, have seeded life on Earth? Cabrol continues this dazzling interplanetary tour, illuminating the likeliest places for life in our neighbourhood: Venus, Mar