The labs cover five disciplinary core ideas in Earth and space science: Earth’s place in the universe, the history of Earth, Earth’s systems, weather and climate, and Earth and human activity.

Off-Earth is an extension of her 2017 podcast, Making New Worlds, which asked ethical questions about space settlement. The book takes some of the same questions and expands on them.

That question is at the center of a new book written by my guest. Mario Livio is co-author with Jack Szostak of Is Earth Exceptional? The Quest for Cosmic Life. Dr. Livio is an astrophysicist ...