Our small place in space - this planet Earth - together with Sun and

other planets of our solar system and their many moons is located about

two-thirds from the center of the disk-shaped galaxy that we know as the

Milky Way. When we look toward its center on a clear night what we see is

the faint luminosity of billions of stars that make up this galaxy.

There are other galaxies too, far away, that look to our naked eyes just

like any other star. But they too contain billions of stars. From our vantage

point on Earth, orbiting a rather insignificant star that we call Sun, located

in the Milky Way Galaxy in one of its many solar systems - we gaze in

wonder.

At last, I have come to that stage in life and career that I can put aside

the urge to understand some little details, however fundamental they may be

in the edifice of a particular science - in my case nuclear and astrophysics

- and look to the grander scale of our place in the universe with its Sun

and planets and their many moons stretching far away. I tell, too, the story

of life, its needs, and vicissitudes on Earth and in its seas, as well as other

possible habitable zones on other planets and on the larger moons of some

of them.