Altre terre. Viaggio alla scoperta di pianeti extrasolari
by Covone, Giovanni
What is the future of humankind in the Universe? Are we alone in the cosmos? Are there other
Earths that we can colonise? These are just some of the questions that Giovanni Covone, professor of Astrophysics, tries to answer by looking up at the sky and the stars. Because the history of astronomical research is as old as humanity itself, from the first, primitive yet brilliant attempts to study the stars by naked eye, to the latest space missions, carried out with the aid of huge, ultramodern telescopes.
Covone himself is part of this millennial race to the stars: in January 2019, together with a NASA team, he contributed to the identification of TOI-700d, a possible ‘new home’ for mankind. A hypothetical twin of the Earth, though at a sidereal distance. But such a discovery, surprisingly, teaches us just how unique our planet is. The Universe, in its vastness, offers astonishing sights: stars shining at more than a hundred times the intensity of the Sun, planets with oceans of lava, showers of molten rock or covered in thick ice caps. And the strange worlds we will one day find may be different from what we see, even from what we usually fantasize about. Altre terre reviews past and current astronomical discoveries, asking new questions about what exists outside the boundaries of our knowledge.
- Publishing house HarperCollins Italia
- Year of publication 2023
- Number of pages 336
- ISBN 9791259850577
- Foreign Rights Aurora, Peccarisi, aurora.peccarisi@harpercollins.it
- Price 18.50
Covone, Giovanni
Giovanni Govone was born in Trani in 1969. He is an associate professor of Astrophysics and
Cosmology at the Federico II University in Naples. He is interested in searching for Earth-like planets, astrobiology and the study of dark matter on a cosmic scale. He holds “Cosmology” courses for Physics students, “Astrophysics of Life” in the Faculty of Biology and “Fundamentals of Physics and Cosmology” for the Philosophy degree course. Altre terre is his first book.
