Earth (Object Lessons)

Earth (Object Lessons)

<p>Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.</p><p>In <i>Earth</i>, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the solitary orb is a challenge to scale and to human self-importance. Beautiful and self-contained, the Earth turns out to be far less knowable than it at first appears: its vast interior an inferno of incandescent and yet solid rock and a reservoir of water vaster than the ocean, a world within the world. Viewing the Earth from space invites a dive into the abyss of scale: how can humans apprehend the distances, the temperatures, and the time scale on which planets are born, evolve, and die?</p><p>Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in <i>The Atlantic</i>.</p>