Have you ever been far away from city lights and noticed the stars like diamonds in the sky? Many people have, and have been deeply moved and amazed by the experience. Touching the Universe chronicles the adventures of author Steve Coe as he shares his love of the night sky. Coe is willing to travel far and wide to view new vistas of the universe.Each chapter in Touching the Universe contains Coes observations of the night sky on each of the twenty nights he recal...

A special 10th anniversary edition of the million-copy bestseller What If? from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd—revised and annotated with brand-new illustrations and answers to the most absurd hypothetical questions you never thought to ask.Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and li...

For everyone who’s curious about what’s new under (and over and around) the stars.Douglas Adams famously pronounced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42. Quirks & Quarks, whose approach to science owes almost as much to Adams as it does to Newton or Einstein or Hawking, have flipped that notion through a gap in the space-time continuum (or something like that) and come up with answers to the 42 essenti...

Stargazing Throughout the Seasons in the Northern Hemisphere is an excerpt from The Star Book that guides you through the night skies in the Northern Hemisphere, through wide-angle star charts. Looking at the main constellations, stars and celestial showpieces of the northern celestial sphere, beginning with constellations around the north pole and then taking a season by season view. Most northern constellations are as familiar to today's stargazers as they were to the a...

An accessible, informative guide to identifying constellations and other incredible features of the sky, whether you’re hiking, camping, or stargazing from your backyard.Discover the Stars leads you on a tour of all the stars and constellations visible with the naked eye and introduces you to deep-sky objects that can be seen with binoculars or a simple telescope. The tour is conducted by the editor of Astronomy magazine, Richard Berry, whose two-color, co...

Guesstimation 2.0 reveals the simple and effective techniques needed to estimate virtually anything--quickly--and illustrates them using an eclectic array of problems. A stimulating follow-up to Guesstimation, this is the must-have book for anyone preparing for a job interview in technology or finance, where more and more leading businesses test applicants using estimation questions just like these.The ability to guesstimate on your feet is an essential skill to h...

Portraits of the deep sky and of local astronomical phenomena taken by the world's renowned astrophotographers—with a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson.To gaze at the stars is one thing; to capture that gaze in photographs is something else, a tantalizing scientific art that many attempt and few master. That rare mastery is on full display in this beautiful volume of space photography from thirty of the most accomplished astrophotographers in the world, both professi...

This beautifully illustrated volume reveals the startling discoveries about Saturn's largest moon made by the Cassini-Huygens probe in 2005.In the early 1980s, when the two Voyager spacecraft skimmed past Titan, Saturn's largest moon, they transmitted back enticing images of a world concealed in a seemingly impenetrable orange haze. Scientists speculated about its mysteries for years. Finally, in 2005, the Cassini-Huygens probe successfully parachuted down through T...

From the Sun and the Moon to black holes and faraway galaxies, the Book Of Space takes you through the wonders of the solar system and beyond. If you want to discover how the International Space Station was built or what happens when a star dies, then this is the book for you. Packed with amazing facts and answers to lifes biggest questions, the Book Of Space is a must for anyone interested in learning about the galaxy we live in.

Edited by Ben BovaThis book is designed to give science fiction writers the background they need in real science to make their fiction read like fact. World Building is a blueprint in words, calculations, tables and diagrams to help writers transport readers from one world to another.With Stephen Gillett's help, you'll be on solid ground, no matter what kinds of worlds you create for your science fiction.World-Building explains science to help you make your fiction ...

This is one of a planned series called Calculations for Science Fiction Writers. Later chapters will include a relativistic version of this one, and others on circular orbits, elliptical orbits rotational dynamics, and more. For those writers who want to get the details right!This article explains basic calculations related to constant acceleration. It should be of interest to science fiction writers who want to make their stories realistic, and to anyone interested in space travel...

This volume reveals the latest knowledge of the composition and nature of our solar family. Here you'll discover what lies beyond the orbit of Pluto, which solar body is the most volcanically active, and which solar system bodies have atmospheres and may harbour primitive life.