Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System

After centuries of speculation and decades of advanced high-tech searches, astronomers are just now getting solid evidence of "distant wanderers" -- planets outside our own solar system. Armed with new tools and techniques, researchers have made enormous strides in planet-searching in the last few years. And the results of their efforts are nothing short of spectacular.

In a refreshing and approachable style that will appeal to the non-specialist, veteran science journalist Bruce Dorminey explains what has already been found and what is likely to be found as astronomers gaze further and more clearly into space. The early returns, he reports, are amazing: Planets come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They are searingly hot and and mind-bogglingly cold. Some have nearly circular stable orbits, others follow wildly elliptical paths. There are planets that move in paths between paired "binary" suns -- as if the role of star and satellite were reversed. And some recently discovered planets seem to have no orbits at all, but wander, star-less, in the huge disorganized clouds of still-forming galaxies.

In interviews with dozens of cutting-edge astronomers, exobiologists, and other scientists, Dorminey shows us how planets outside our solar system are a great new frontier -- the source of unimaginable and totally unexpected new information about the cosmos.

Paris-based journalist Bruce Dorminey writes about astronomy and astrophysics. He is a former Hong Kong bureau chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine and a former regular science and technology contributor for the daily pages of the Financial Times, London. Dorminey has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including Astronomy, Discover, Geographical, Canada's Globe & Mail, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Toronto Star, and The Dallas Morning News. He is also a 1998 winner in the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards. This is his first book.