Friday, 24 May, 2013

This new edition covers the beauty and the mystery of the sky: From our moon to the most distant galactic explosion. With photos that just can’t be reduced to the computer screen, the book renews our enthusiasm for understanding the mysteries of the cosmos. With enviable info-graphics, Universe shows a consummate marriage of image and text.

With space shuttles in museums, what is the near-term American plan to return to space? Can other countries or private companies fill the gap?

Titanic explosion shows one of the biggest bangs since the Biggest Bang, spreads useful elements through the universe. Finally revealed: anti-matter is working for you!

Space is probably infinite, but we can see only the part that contains stars or galaxies whose light has been able to reach us, says Francis Halzen, a professor of physics. The universe originated about 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang, so light cannot have been traveling for more than 13.7 billion years. [...]

“We don’t know,” says Ed Churchwell, professor of astronomy. “We know it’s a very large number.” It’s in the hundreds of billions, Churchwell says. In contrast, there are but 4 billion stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way — and the number will keep growing for some time before we run out of galaxies [...]

400 years ago, Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter. We discover water from 11 billion years ago, volcanoes at Titan, a moon of Saturn, and good reasons to shun light pollution.

Use a cellphone? Love nature? Fear cancer? Then how can you hate science? Epidemics, environment, technology: We’ve got questions for the marathoners running (still?) for prexydent.

The Long Goodbye: 30 years after blast-off, two Voyager spaceships have reached the edge of the solar system. Meet the missions that revolutionized the study of planets and moons.

Scientists are always celebrating past accomplishments. And why not? They’ve got a lot to celebrate.

After 20 years, star explosion reveals more secrets. What gives in these giant bangs?

Where did all the dust come from? If you are interested in the origin of planets and human beings, here’s evidence that a star explosion made mucho dust.

Losing count: New study finds object larger than Pluto in the distant solar system. Do we now have 10 planets — or 8?

The solar clock doesn’t quite line up with the atomic clock. We use leap seconds to make them match. Should we dump the leap second?

What can we learn from whacking comets, up close and personal? What do comets tell us about the early solar system? And what is the role of comets in history?

In astronomy, it helps to get above it all. Three cool orbiting telescopes are collecting visible, infrared and X-ray light. We ogle their greatest hits.