Ex Libris

"The history and fate of our planet and the beings upon it have been profoundly, crucially influenced, through the whole history of the Earth and not just in the time of its origins, by what's out there. Our oceans, our climate, the building blocks of life, biological mutation, massive extinctions of species, the pace and timing of the evolution of life, all cannot be understood if we imagine the Earth hermetically sealed from the rest of the Universe, with only a little sunlight trickling in from the outside."

-- Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," 1992