Under Alien Skies
A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe
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4.3 • 9 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A Financial Times Best Science Book of 2023 • A Science News Favorite Book of 2023 • A Scientific American 2023 Staff Recommendation
"The next-best thing to traveling through space and time." —Laura Helmuth, editor in chief of Scientific American
A rip-roaring tour of the cosmos with the Bad Astronomer, bringing you up close and personal with the universe like never before.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the universe? How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before getting spaghettified? While traveling in person to most of these amazing worlds may not be possible—yet—the would-be space traveler need not despair: you can still take the scenic route through the galaxy with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait.
On this lively, immersive adventure through the cosmos, Plait draws ingeniously on both the latest scientific research and his prodigious imagination to transport you to ten of the most spectacular sights outer space has to offer. In vivid, inventive scenes informed by rigorous science—injected with a dose of Plait’s trademark humor—Under Alien Skies places you on the surface of alien worlds, from our own familiar Moon to the far reaches of our solar system and beyond. Try launching yourself onto a two-hundred-meter asteroid, or stargazing from the rim of an ancient volcano on a planet where, from the place you stand, it is eternally late afternoon. Experience the sudden onset of lunar nightfall, the disorientation of walking—or, rather, shuffling—when you weigh almost nothing, the irritation of jagged regolith dust. Glimpse the frigid mountains and plains of Pluto and the cake-like exterior of a comet called 67P. On a planet trillions of miles from Earth, glance down to see the strange, beautiful shadows cast by a hundred thousand stars.
For the aspiring extraterrestrial citizen, casual space tourist, or curious armchair traveler, Plait is an illuminating, always-entertaining guide to the most otherworldly views in our universe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Astronomer Plait (Death from the Skies!) takes readers on an awe-inspiring tour of the cosmos in this dazzling outing. He describes what readers would see if they could visit, for instance, Mars, a nebula, or a black hole, detailing the astrophysics involved at each destination. Visitors to the moon's surface, he notes, would have to adjust to a lunar day that lasts about as long as a month on Earth and during which the "sky will be utterly black." Traveling to Saturn, he adds, would be complicated by the fact that the only solid ground to land on is the gas giant's core, which is "hotter than the surface of the Sun" and lies under thousands of miles of atmosphere. Plait provides accessible overviews of the strange and exciting science involved in the otherworldly scenes, as when he explains that the behavior of light waves interacting with rusty dust in the atmosphere on Mars gives its skies a butterscotch color, except at sunset when the sky and sun appear blue. The text is laced with humor, as when he offers a detailed account of the annihilation readers would face if they flew too close to a black hole and quips that "you probably should've read the small print in the guidebook before signing your Rent-a-Starship contract." Diagrams and vivid color photos enhance the presentation. This will change how readers think about space. Photos.
