Showing titles in Astronomy

This third edition surveys the applicability of Egyptian cosmological concepts to our modern understanding of the nature of the universe, creation, science, and philosophy. Egyptian cosmology is humanistic, coherent, comprehensive, consistent, logical, analytical, and rational.

Adrian West, a.k.a. the internet sensation VirtualAstro, will take you through the seasons, showing you exactly what you can spot in the sky throughout the year, whether you're in your back garden or sitting on an exotic beach somewhere! While you're learning how to spot constellations, meteors and comets, you will be switching off your busy mind, sitting still in nature and paying attention to the small details that make up the big picture of life.

If you're looking for a fun, engaging way to challenge your knowledge of outer space, then you need this fact-packed trivia book! Enjoy by yourself or test your memory against friends and family in a galactic trivia night. If a question stumps you, we follow up the answers with over 501 mind-bending facts! Inside are 177 trivia questions to challenge everybody, from students, the avidly curious novice and above. The unfolding universe is quickly expanding minds.

In the first book to critically assess the major consequences of space activities from their origins in the 1940s to the present and beyond, Daniel Deudney argues in Dark Skies that the major result of the "Space Age" has been to increase the likelihood of global nuclear war, a fact conveniently obscured by the failure of recognize that nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are inherently space weapons.

Are there more than four dimensions to physical reality? Is it possible to traverse time as well as space? Is there a reality beyond our traditional concepts of time and space? The startling discovery of modern science is that our physical universe is actually finite. Scientists now acknowledge that the universe had a beginning. They call the singularity from which it all began the "Big Bang".

Revealing how panspermia offers answers to some of humanity’s longstanding questions about the origins of life, the authors discuss the impact this shift in understanding will have on our relationship with the Earth and on culture, history, and religion. And perhaps the most dramatic ramification of all is that acceptance of panspermia means acceptance that Earth is not unique - that other life-filled planets exist and intelligent life is common in the Universe. Not only did we come from space, but we are not alone.

Project Mercury: The History and Legacy of America’s First Human Spaceflight Program examines the origins behind the missions, the people and spacecraft involved, and the historic results. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Mercury like never before.

Learn about the incomparable beauty of the Northern Lights with this accessible guide for aspiring astronomers and seasoned night sky observers. Tom Kerss covers the cultural and scientific context for auroras and offers a comprehensive guide to forecasting and photography so that listeners can fuse their own technical mastery with the infinite creativity of nature.

Spaceflight is notoriously dangerous. Beyond launch mishaps and equipment failures, astronauts face serious health problems from long-term weightlessness and high-energy radiation. Not to mention, the space environment is a near-perfect vacuum that can quickly kill anyone who is unprotected. Drawing on the hard-won insights of NASA astronauts and space researchers, this 12-lecture course presents the perils of spaceflight and what experts have done to make them survivable. It also deals with livability in space, including nutrition, sleep, environmental control, and personal hygiene.

An epic memoir from a man whose life is defined by exploration and innovation, The Sky Below re-creates some of the most unforgettable adventures of our time. From dramatic, high-risk spacewalks to author Scott Parazynski's death-defying quest to summit Mount Everest - his body ravaged by a career in space - listeners will experience the life of an elite athlete, physician, and explorer.

Great Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy takes you around the world and across time in search of the unsung heroes who, in many ways, are just as important to the story of astronomy as Hubble, Einstein, and Sagan. Whether they stood on the shoulders of giants or themselves offered shoulders for giants to stand on, the heroes of astronomy you’ll meet in these 24 lessons are a collective of the brightest and most daring minds in science.

Stargazing has shaped the entire course of human civilization. The rhythm of our ancestors' lives revolved around the stars, from cycles of agriculture to patterns of birth. How radically different would humanity be if our ancestors had looked up to the night sky and seen...nothing? In lyrical yet evidence-grounded meditations, Trotta imagines a world without stars, a dramatic alternate history in which we wouldn't understand gravity, where couldn't navigate or have much sense of time, and where our sense of the profound - of art and of the divine - was altered beyond recognition.

This engaging memoir reveals the true story of the Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence (SETI), and discloses what we may very soon discover. Chronicling the program’s history with insight and humor, SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak assures us that if there is sentient life in the universe, we are within decades of picking up its signal.

From one of our most acclaimed science writers: a dramatic narrative of the discovery of the true nature and startling size of the universe, delving back past the moment of revelation to trace the decades of work--by a select group of scientists--that made it possible.

We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. As the astrophysicist Caleb Scharf reveals in Gravity’s Engines, these chasms in space-time don’t just vacuum up everything that comes near them; they also spit out huge beams and clouds of matter.

It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring listeners on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life-unlike anything we have experienced so far - that could exist on planets outside our own solar system.

Speaking with key leaders of the latest space programs and innovations, Rod Pyle shares the excitement and promise of this new era of exploration and economic development. From NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, to emerging leaders in the private sector, Space 2.0 examines the new partnerships that are revolutionizing spaceflight and changing the way we reach for the stars.

Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe, and yet they are ubiquitous. Frighteningly enigmatic, these dark giants continue to astound even the scientists who spend their careers studying them. Einstein’s Monsters reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it. From the small questions to the big ones - from the tiniest particles to the nature of space-time itself - black holes might be the key to a deeper understanding of the cosmos.

In Astronomy’s Limitless Journey, astrophysicist Günther Hasinger takes the reader on a journey to the far reaches of the universe?an exciting time travel that begins with the incredibly hot fireball of the Big Bang roughly 13.8 billion years ago and ends in distant eons with its cold, dark demise. In between lie the times in which extensive structures, galaxies, stars, and planets form. As the field of astrophysics and cosmology experiences a “golden age” due to larger telescopes, faster computers, and more sophisticated algorithms, fundamental changes are taking place in our understanding of space and time and of the origin and future of our universe. Hasinger thoroughly explains these fascinating revelations and describes the methods utilized in modern astrophysics.

"Imagine if a Martian showed up, all big ears and big nose like a child’s drawing, and he asked to be baptized. How would you react?" Pope Francis posed that question - without insisting on an answer! - to provoke deeper reflection about inclusiveness and diversity in the Church. But it's not the first time that question has been asked.