" Sarah Stewart Johnson interweaves her own coming-of-age story as a planetary scientist with a vivid history of the exploration of Mars in this celebration of human curiosity, passion, and perseverance."--Alan Lightman, author of Einstein\'s Dreams NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - Times (UK) - Library Journal "Lovely .
She won a Whiting Award in Nonfiction for her first book, The Sirens of Mars..
She is also a visiting scientist with the Planetary Environments Lab at NASA\'s Goddard Space Flight Center.
A former Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, she received her PhD from MIT and has worked on NASA\'s Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers.
About author(s): Sarah Stewart Johnson is an associate professor of planetary science at Georgetown University.
Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.
In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: This other World has been our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings.
Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey--as a female scientist and a mother--with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon.
She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth\'s most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting Life on other worlds.
Johnson\'s fascination with Mars began as a child in Kentucky, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky.
In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a World of its own.
And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum--on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science.
Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty.
Johnson\'s prose swirls with lyrical wonder, as varied and multihued as the apricot deserts, butterscotch skies and blue sunsets of Mars."--Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. . . " Sarah Stewart Johnson interweaves her own coming-of-age story as a planetary scientist with a vivid history of the exploration of Mars in this celebration of human curiosity, passion, and perseverance."--Alan Lightman, author of Einstein\'s Dreams NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - Times (UK) - Library Journal "Lovely
