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Jill Tarter is a pioneer, an innovator, an adventurer, and a
controversial force. At a time when women weren't encouraged to do
much outside the home, Tarter ventured as far out as she could-into
the three-Kelvin cold of deep space. And she hasn't stopped
investigating a subject that takes and takes without giving much
back. Today, her computer's screensaver is just the text "SO...ARE
WE ALONE?" This question keeps her up at night. In some ways, this
is the question that keep us all up at night. We have all spent
dark hours wondering about our place in it all, pondering our
"aloneness," both terrestrial and cosmic. Tarter's life and her
work are not just a quest to understand life in the universe: they
are a quest to understand our lives within the universe. No one has
told that story, her story, until now. It all began with gazing
into the night sky. All those stars were just distant suns-were any
of them someone else's sun? Diving into the science, philosophy,
and politics of SETI-searching for extraterrestrial
intelligence-Sarah Scoles reveals the fascinating figure at the
center of the final frontier of scientific investigation. This is
the perfect book for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky
and wondered if we are alone in the universe.
Using the power of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, this unique,
illustrated guide is filled with engaging exercises that deepen
your knowledge of the solar system, help you take necessary pauses
every day, and foster a renewed sense of presence in the universe.
Thousands of years ago, when we humans lived together in communal
caves, we told stories about the stars. When we later took to the
seas, we used stellar positions to navigate and pinpoint our place
in the world. When we eventually stopped migrating and settled on
land, we relied on the constellations and the Sun to plant and
sustain crops. Yet today, we modern humans have lost this deep
connection to the cosmos that was once central to our daily lives.
Astronomical Mindfulness helps us reconnect to the solar system
once more, guiding us through the fundamental ways in which our
planet moves through the solar system and how these motions
determine our perception of time and place. Offering a concise yet
in-depth look at the Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars, it
teaches us to observe and understand the elements comprising the
celestial sphere-deepening our lives and helping us become more
informed, engaged, and mindful every day. The best part: you don't
need to climb a mountain, visit an observatory, or even own a
telescope. From an apartment rooftop to a city park, from your
backyard to the window by your desk, the skies are accessible to
everyone. Astronomical Mindfulness is a unique tool for personal
growth essential to coping in our modern world, enabling us to be
more present, more connected, and more relaxed simply by looking up
toward the stars.
More than half a century since Roswell, UFOs have been making
headlines once again. On December 17, 2017, the New York
Times ran a front-page story about an approximately five-year
Pentagon program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program. The article hinted, and its sources clearly
said in subsequent television interviews, that some of the ships in
question couldn’t be linked to any country. The implication, of
course, was that they might be linked to other solar systems. The
UFO community—those who had been thinking about, seeing, and
analyzing supposed flying saucers (or triangles or chevrons) for
years—was surprisingly skeptical of the revelation. Their
incredulity and doubt rippled across the internet. Many of the
people most invested in UFO reality weren’t really buying it. And
as Scoles did her own digging, she ventured to dark,
conspiracy-filled corners of the internet, to a former paranormal
research center in Utah, and to the hallways of the Pentagon. In
They Are Already Here we meet the bigwigs, the scrappy upstarts,
the field investigators, the rational people, and the unhinged
kooks of this sprawling community. How do they interact with each
other? How do they interact with “anomalous phenomena”? And how
do they (as any group must) reflect the politics and culture of the
larger world around them? We will travel along the Extraterrestrial
Highway (next to Area 51) and visit the UFO Watchtower, where
seeking lights in the sky is more of a spiritual quest than a
“gotcha” one. We meet someone who, for a while believes
they may have communicated with aliens. Where do these alleged
encounters stem from? What are the emotional effects on the
experiencers? Funny and colorful, and told in a way that doesn’t
require one to believe, Scoles brings humanity to an often derided
and misunderstood community. After all, the truth is out there . .
.
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Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
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R383
R318
Discovery Miles 3 180
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