'Alone in the Universe' is thought provoking and sobering'. (New Scientist, 17th December 2011)

JOHN GRIBBIN is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books including In Search of the Multiverse (Wiley), In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, and Science: A History. He trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is now Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

Acknowledgements xi Preface: The Only Intelligent Planet xiii Introduction: One in a Trillion 1 Across the Milky Way; Hot jupiters; Planets in profusion; Dusty beginnings; Cosmic chemistry; The life of Gaia; Searching for other Gaias 1. Two Paradoxes and an Equation 26 The cosmic lottery and the Drake equation; The inspection paradox and the Copernican principle; Panspermia and the Fermi paradox; Probing for an answer 2. What's So Special about Our Place in the Milky Way? 55 Making galaxies; Making metals; Mixing metals in the Milky Way; Our place in the Milky Way; The Galactic Habitable Zone; Catastrophic comets 3. What's So Special about the Sun? 80 The narrow zone of life; The Sun is not an average star; Perturbing partners; Blasts from the past; The mystery of solar metallicity; Until the Sun dies; Postponing Doomsday 4. What's So Special about the Solar System? 100 Too hot to handle; The geography of the Solar System; Making planets; Making the Solar System; Making the Earth; The special one 5. What's So Special about the Earth? 126 Like a diamond in the sky; A planetary jigsaw puzzle; Creating continents; A fi eld of force; Venus and Mars; A planetary stabilizer; Plate tectonics and life 6. What's So Special about the Cambrian Explosion? 151 I. Contingency and Convergence The Cambrian explosion; The Burgess Shale; Contingency; Convergence; The third way 7. What's So Special about the Cambrian Explosion? 167 II. Hothouse Venus/Snowball Earth After the deep freeze; Tipping the balance; From without or within?; The archetypal impact; Cosmic clouds and comet dust; Diamond dust and a facelift for a goddess 8. What's So Special about Us? 184 Chance, necessity and the decimal system; The molecular clock; The trigger for change; The pacemaker of human evolution; The fate of technological civilization; The fate of the Earth; No second chance Further Reading 206 Index 211