Summary

Nine years after the publication of Comets and the Origin and Evolution of Life, one of the pioneering books in Astrobiology, this second edition revisits the role comets may have played in the origins and evolution of life. Recent analyses of Antarctic micrometeorites and ancient rocks in Australia and South Africa, the continuing progress in discovering complex organic macromolecules in comets, protostars and interstellar clouds, new insights into organic synthesis in comets, and numerical simulations of comet impacts on the Earth and other members of the solar system yield a spectacular wealth of new results.

This second edition is thus actually a new book. As the first edition it is intended as a comprehensive review of current research, accessible to graduate students and others new to the field. Each chapter was prepared by experts to give an overview of an aspect of the field, and carefully revised by the editors for uniformity in style and presentation.

Choice Review

This collection of review articles comments on the current status of understanding of comets and their role in the origin and evolution of life. Each article concludes with an extensive bibliography that will be a valuable tool to any researcher in this field. New space missions, laboratory simulations, and computer modeling have all contributed to new findings and ideas. Data from spacecraft encounters with comets is now available. Dust from comets continues to be studied, particularly the analysis of Antarctic micrometeorites. Many different organic molecules have been found in interstellar clouds and in the active chemical environments of the hot molecular cores of star-forming regions. The consensus seems to be that comets most likely played an important role in introducing prebiotic organic materials to the early Earth as it was recovering from the early period of violent collisions with planetesimals and comets, including the collision that is supposed to have formed the Earth-moon system. Many important questions remain to be answered; the analysis of comet dust from the Stardust spacecraft is yet to be completed, and the first soft landing on a comet nucleus should occur in 2014. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students through professionals. M. Dickinson formerly, Maine Maritime Academy