A) T.Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Alvarez.
Chapter 1 is an introduction describing how the impact of a 10 kilometer
comet or asteroid probaly killed the dinosaurs 65
million years ago.
B) The Alchemy of the Heavens by Ken Croswell.
Chapters 1 and 3 introduce our galaxy and tell a little about how big
galaxies are. Chapter 9 describes how nuclear reactions in
stars made the chemical elements of which we are made.
C) the Perfect Machine by Ronald Florence.
This is a history of the great 200 inch Palomar telescope. The first two
chapters describe a famous debate on the size of the
galaxy and the universe. These two readings B) and C) should tell you
that the universe is made up of very many galaxies each
with hundreds of billions of stars. If even a fraction of these stars
have planets this implies very many possible homes for life.
D) Vital Dust by Christian de Duve
This Nobel prize winning biochemist introduces the origin of life
Short Articles
A) Messengers from Mars (Astronomy Magazine, August 1995)
Describes meteorites from Mars. Note, this was written before the claims
about ancient Mars life.
B) Extrasolar Planets (Physics Today, September 1996)
Describes the discovery of planets around other stars. Note, some of this
article is more technical. Do not worry, you will not
by held responsible.