The possibility of life on other worlds has stirred the human imagination and stimulated scientific curiosity for as long as people have been looking up at the sky. From Aristotle to Star Trek to the latest pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, the examination of this age-old question continues to arouse profound excitement and has found expression in human culture from the first cosmologies to the latest theories about the origin of life -- in oral tradition, literature, and film, and in the rapidly developing disciplines of astrobiology, space exploration, and extrasolar planet detection. David Darling draws together the many threads of the search for extraterrestrial life in his comprehensive and entertaining guide. His one-of-a-kind resource covers everything from the Arecibo Message; brown dwarfs; cell membranes; Dyson spheres; and extremophiles to biographical portraits of leading scientists, such as Carl Sagan and Jill Tarter; philosophers, such as René Descartes and William Whewell; and science fiction writers, such as Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke. The Extraterrestrial Encyclopediaoffers a wealth of information, never before available in a single volume: almost 1,900 informative entries cover a wide range of topics -- from serious science to pop culture.biographical profiles identify over 300 leading contributors in the field94 illustrations user-friendly cross-referencing makes navigating through the topics easyan extensive list of web sites guides further researcha detailed time line places the search for extraterrestrial life in historical perspectivea detailed table shows SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programs from 1960 to the present