Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars

“The world's leading alien hunter” — New York Times Magazine

From acclaimed Harvard astrophysicist and bestselling author of Extraterrestrial comes a mind-expanding new book on space exploration explaining why becoming an interstellar species is imperative for humanity’s survival and detailing a game plan for how we can settle among the stars.

In the New York Times bestseller Extraterrestrial, Avi Loeb, the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Astronomy Department, presented a theory that shook the scientific community: our solar system, Loeb claimed, had likely been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. This provocative and persuasive argument opened millions of minds internationally to the vast possibilities of cosmology and the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth. But a crucial question remained: now that we are aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, what do we do next? How do we prepare ourselves for interaction with interstellar extraterrestrial civilization? How can our species become interstellar?

Now Loeb tackles these questions in a revelatory, powerful call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, Interstellar provides a realistic and practical blueprint for how first contact might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate surrounding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), Loeb provides a thrilling, front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he powerfully contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.

Combining cutting edge science, physics, and philosophy, Interstellar revolutionizes the approach to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and our preparation for its discovery. In this eye-opening, necessary look at our future, Avi Loeb artfully and expertly raises some of the most important questions facing us as humans, and proves, once again, that scientific curiosity is the key to our survival.

In Interstellar, Loeb provides a roadmap for the future of humanity:

• A New Search for Alien Technology: Go inside the Galileo Project, the groundbreaking scientific mission founded by Loeb to systematically search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological signatures in our sky.
• Interstellar Archaeology: Discover why the next great discovery may not come from a telescope, but from recovering fragments of interstellar meteors―the first of which may already be resting on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
• The ‘Oumuamua Enigma: Revisit the data from our solar system’s first known interstellar visitor and understand the compelling scientific argument for why it may have been an artifact from another civilization.
• The Cosmic Ladder of Civilizations: Learn Loeb’s new classification for cosmic cultures and confront the urgent question of how humanity can ascend from a planet-endangering species to one ready to settle the stars.

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University, the longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, the founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and the current director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He also heads the Galileo Project, chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, and is former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. Author of eight books and more than a thousand scientific papers, Loeb is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2012, Time selected Loeb as one of the twenty-five most influential people in space. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.