Professor Joseph Gale, biologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, carried out research and served for some years as consultant to NASA’s CELSS project (Controlled Environment Life Support Systems). From there he became interested in the exobiology program, later called astrobiology. Gale has built and taught a program on “The Astrobiology of Planet Earth” an elective for third year science students, which over the last decade attracts some one hundred students each year. He has lectured at numerous national and international conferences. In recent years, he has been invited to participate in astrobiology seminars of the University of Stockholm and the International Space University. Gale has published some 100+ refereed papers and authored and coauthored four books, including Plants in Saline Environments (Springer-Verlag 1975) and Astrobiology of Earth (OUP 2009).

Life in Space: Astrobiology for Non-Scientists, provides an accessible overview of the emerging interdisciplinary field of astrobiology, designed not only for science majors but also for any undergraduate students or lay readers excited by the prospect of life in the universe. It addresses the recent detection of potentially habitable planets and the prospects for detecting biosignatures and life, as well as the celestial and geological factors that enabled the appearance and evolution of life on Earth; based on over twenty years of university coursework, and in particular the authors’ own extensive astrobiology curriculum.