Placing outer space : an Earthly ethnography of other worlds / Lisa Messeri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Messeri, Lisa, 1982- author.

Series:

Experimental futures

Experimental futures : technological lives, scientific arts, anthropological voices

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology.

Planets.

Planets--Aeronautics.

Planets--Age.

Planets--Core.

Planets--Density.

Planets--Mantles.

Planets--Mass.

Planets--Radiation.

Planets--Rotation.

Planets--Seasons.

Planets--Transits.

Planets--Wind erosion.

Planets--Winds.

Extrasolar planets.

Physical Description:

x, 238 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2016.

Summary:

In Placing Outer Space Lisa Messeri traces how the place-making practices of planetary scientists transform the void of space into a cosmos tilled with worlds that can be known and explored. Making planets into places is central to the daily practices and professional identifies of the astronomers, geologists, and computer scientists Messeri studies. She takes riders to the Mars Desert Research Station and a NASA research center to discuss ways scientists experience and map Mars. At a Chilean observatory and in MIT's labs she describes how they discover exoplanets and envision what it would be like to inhabit them. Today's planetary-science reveals the universe as densely inhabited by evocative worlds, which in turn re I Is us more about Earth, ourselves, and our place in the universe. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction from outer space to outer place

Narrating Mars in Utah's desert

Mapping Mars in Silicon Valley

Visualizing alien worlds

Inhabiting other Earths

Conclusion : navigating the infinite cosmos.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780822361879

0822361876

9780822362036

0822362031

OCLC:

926821450