Life on Earth - and Beyond Review
This book follows the journey of NASA’s Dr. Chris McKay as he searches the most extreme environments on Earth to study how life can be sustained in these areas and other areas on planets with similar environments. Before Turner delves into McKay’s life as a scientist, she first explores his beginnings as a child interested in science, a college student who founded a group interested in sending astronauts to Mars, and the space missions that occurred during his life that motivated him to work for NASA. Turner follows Dr. McKay as he researches different areas of the Earth while simultaneously integrating information about Mars into each chapter. This book is a great exploration of some possibly unfamiliar locations on our planet and the intricacies of each area. Ultimately, Dr. McKay is trying to see if life can exist beyond Earth by investigating areas like Antarctica, the Atacama Desert, Siberia, and the Sahara Desert.Turner does a great job highlighting the similarities
between our world and the environments in our solar system, sparking an
interest in both Earth and Space. Students will be drawn to this book
because of the implications of its title and keep reading until they
finish the book because of the great narrative Turner has crafted
following Dr. McKay.