Imagine you are a voyager who can overcome the restrictions of time, space, environment, and size. Your odyssey begins on an asteroid caught in the gravitational pull of planet Earth. From this vantage point, you are witness to spectacular storms, volcanic eruptions, the very tearing open of the Earth's crust and the beginning of life. Piero and Alberto Angela take us on just such an amazing journey. Written in the form of an explorer's log, "The Extraordinary Story of Life on Earth" condenses four billion years into a single year, making it easier to assess the relative distances between major events and the duration of each evolutionary era. January 1 marks the date on which life first appeared on Earth; more complex cells with a nucleus emerge in the second half of August; dinosaurs appear in early December; and Homo sapiens debut in the last minutes of the last day of the year! Based on the work of researchers in the fields of biochemistry, palaeontology, astrophysics, cell biology, zoology, and genetics, this extraordinary story is grounded on the many fossil remains which provide firsthand evidence of the creatures that roamed the earth during prehistoric times. The emergence of life on Earth is not a simple story, but the authors' easy-to-follow narrative style and vivid descriptions, combined with copious illustrations, makes this fascinating story come alive.