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Hidden in the Heavens - Jason Steffen ****

This introduction to the relatively short-lasting Kepler space telescope's search for exoplanets from a researcher on the team opens with the now familiar (and, dare I say it, rather dull) image of people standing around celebrating a mission launch. This type of 'they're just people, folks' intro is supposed to make science more approachable, which made me concerned it would be one of those books that focuses mostly on 'what I did at work and the lovely people I worked with'. Thankfully, though, Jason Steffen, an associate professor of physics and long-term member of the science team on NASA's Kepler mission, keeps his focus mostly on the discoveries, rather than the warm fizzy wine.

We are taken through (perhaps in a bit too much detail) the design of the probe and related missions before settling down on the telescope's use: how planets orbiting other stars are detected and behave, and common but sometimes unfamiliar types of planet.

I very much liked the inclusion of some detail on the difficulty of dealing with binary star systems and other stellar oddities (a welcome addition as this isn't often mentioned in any detail in popular science books on this subject) and the inevitable speculation about habitability and what would contribute to a planet's environment. Steffen is honest about the dangers of subjectivity of detection on the part of observers (who, after all, want to find exoplanets) and the benefits of reducing human decision making in deciding exactly what has been observed.

This is a solid approach to the subject, pitched quite well for a popular science audience. Steffen's prose does the job in a workmanlike fashion. I found the subtitle both a spot irritating and misleading, as it seems to suggest the main focus is examining our own navels California-style in 'How the Kepler mission's quest for new planets changed how we view our own'. Thankfully this isn't the case, except to dedicate a few pages to the way discoveries so far suggest Earth to be relatively rare. I don't particularly want to be thinking about our neighbourhood when I'm finding out about exoplanets and how they are discovered. It smacks somewhat of 'it's all about me'. But that doesn't detract from a good, straightforward picture of the exoplanent quest.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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