Best Astronomy & Space Science

How do we fit within the universe? “Neil deGrasse Tyson makes a big bang with Astrophysics for People in a Hurry .”. - Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair “Tyson is a master of streamlining and simplification....taking mind-bogglingly complex ideas, stripping them down to their nuts and bolts, padding them with colorful allegories and dorky jokes, and making them accessible to the layperson”. - Salon. “Infectiously enthusiastic, humorous and, above all, accessible....reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is both a humbling and exhilarating experience.”. - BookPage.

Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and determination resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging, step in spaceflight. This hopeful enthusiasm wanes when their son or daughter starts bringing notes home from the teacher, complaining that they have the attention span of gnat, and need to stop parkouring on school property. This description isn’t far off from a young Scott Kelly, not the bookish type either, and yet it was a book he happened upon that dramatically changed the trajectory of his life: Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff . Kelly was so inspired by this examination of the courageous test pilots who made high speed flight and space exploration possible that he was able to channel all of his frenetic energy into achieving the goal of becoming one. Endurance traces this journey, and chronicles the year Kelly spent on the International Space Station, as well as the effects it had on his body (information NASA needs as they plan a mission to Mars). Kelly answers many of the questions we have about life in space, from the profound to the mundane (turns out astronauts give bad haircuts and unclog toilets like the rest of us earthbound peeps). Chief among them, and especially apropos given the increasingly divisive world we live in: “Putting this space station into orbit…is the hardest thing that humans have ever done, and it stands as proof that when we set our minds to something hard, when we work together, we can do anything, including solving our problems here on Earth.” Endurance is a fascinating, moving, uplifting read. “Scott Kelly’s saga is a deeply absorbing and vivid look at a year in space and the many trials and rigors of living weightless inside a football field-sized machine traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. But Endurance satisfies far more than the reader’s technological curiosities; it is replete with humor, thrills, surreal details, and recurring moments of ordinary humanity that turn Kelly’s tale into a loving tribute to the pioneering individuals who risk all to shepherd man’s exploration of the vast beyond.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of And the Mountains Echoed.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. Before John Glenn orbited Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia, and entering the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

In this “enjoyable, fast-paced tale” ( The Economist ), master historian David McCullough “shows as never before how two Ohio boys from a remarkable family taught the world to fly” ( The Washington Post) and “captures the marvel of what the Wrights accomplished” ( The Wall Street Journal ). Essential reading, this is “a story of timeless importance, told with uncommon empathy and fluency…about what might be the most astonishing feat mankind has ever accomplished… The Wright Brothers soars” ( The New York Times Book Review ). An Amazon Best Book of May 2015: Most people recognize the famous black-and-white photo of the Wright brothers on a winter day in 1903, in a remote spot called Kitty Hawk, when they secured their place in history as the first to fly a motor-powered airplane. That brilliant moment is the cornerstone of the new masterful book by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, who brings his deft touch with language and his eye for humanizing details to the unusually close relationship between a pair of brothers from Dayton, Ohio, who changed aviation history. Bicycle shop owners by day, Wilbur and Orville taught themselves flight theory through correspondence with the Smithsonian and other experts. But the brothers soon realized that theory was no match for practical testing, and they repeatedly risked life and limb in pursuit of their goal—including when Orville fractured a leg and four ribs in a 75-foot plunge to the ground. McCullough’s narration of ventures such as this—their famous first flight at Kitty Hawk; the flight in Le Mans, France that propelled the brothers to international fame; the protracted patent battles back at home; and the early death of elder brother Wilbur—will immerse readers in the lives of the Wright family. The Wright Brothers soars.” (Daniel Okrent The New York Times Book Review). “David McCullough has etched a brisk, admiring portrait of the modest, hardworking Ohioans who designed an airplane in their bicycle shop and solved the mystery of flight on the sands of Kitty Hawk, N.C. Mr. McCullough is in his element writing about seemingly ordinary folk steeped in the cardinal American virtues—self-reliance and can-do resourcefulness.” (Roger Lowenstein The Wall Street Journal). Mr. McCullough presents all this with dignified panache, and with detail so granular you may wonder how it was all collected.” (Janet Maslin The New York Times). "McCullough’s magical account of [the Wright Brothers'] early adventures — enhanced by volumes of family correspondence, written records, and his own deep understanding of the country and the era — shows as never before how two Ohio boys from a remarkable family taught the world to fly." But it’s also a story that resonates with anyone who believes deeply in the power of technology to change lives – and the resistance some have to new innovations.” (Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google ). With his ear for dialect and eye for detail, McCullough puts the Wrights in historical context, flushed out by vivid portraits of their loyal father and sister. "McCullough's usual warm, evocative prose makes for an absorbing narrative; he conveys both the drama of the birth of flight and the homespun genius of America's golden age of innovation." "McCullough shows the Wright brothers (snubbed by the British as mere bicycle mechanics) for the important technoscientists they were. The United States honors David McCullough for his lifelong efforts to document the people, places, and events that have shaped America.” (From The Presidential Medal of Freedom Citation).

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton [Hawking] can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and wit. Mr. Hawking clearly possesses a natural teacher's gifts -- easy, good-natured humor and an ability to illustrate highly complex propositions with analogies plucked from daily life.

How do we fit within the universe? “Neil deGrasse Tyson makes a big bang with Astrophysics for People in a Hurry .”. - Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair “Tyson is a master of streamlining and simplification....taking mind-bogglingly complex ideas, stripping them down to their nuts and bolts, padding them with colorful allegories and dorky jokes, and making them accessible to the layperson”. - Salon. “Infectiously enthusiastic, humorous and, above all, accessible....reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is both a humbling and exhilarating experience.”. - BookPage.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton [Hawking] can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and wit. Mr. Hawking clearly possesses a natural teacher's gifts -- easy, good-natured humor and an ability to illustrate highly complex propositions with analogies plucked from daily life.

In academia, in government agencies, in laboratories around the world, and even in the Oval Office–where an inquisitive President Clinton had received the news in secret– players of all kinds plotted their next moves. Among them: David McKay, the dynamic geologist associated with the first moon landing, who labored to achieve at long last a second success; Bill Schopf of UCLA, a researcher determined to remain at the top of his field and the first to challenge McKay’s claims; Dan Goldin, the boss of NASA; and Dick Morris, the controversial presidential adviser who wanted to use the story for Clinton’s reelection and unfortunately made sure it ended up in the diary of a $200-an-hour call girl. Impeccably researched and thrillingly involving, Kathy Sawyer’s The Rock from Mars is an exemplary work of modern nonfiction, a vivid account of the all-too-human high-stakes drive to learn our true place in the cosmic scheme. When geologist Robbie Score spied the little green rock lying on the bluish-white Antarctic landscape on a December day in 1984, she had no idea it would change her life, provoke fierce controversies among scientists around the world and challenge humankind's view of ourselves. Her discovery was the meteorite from Mars that captured the world's attention in 1996 when NASA scientists claimed that minuscule structures deep within it were the fossilized remains of ancient Martian life. Shipped to NASA's Texas Space Center, the rock's strange carbon compounds eventually inspired a group of fervid scientists working in secret to conclude that they were examining nothing less than fossilized remains of ancient microbial Martian life.

Revised in 2016 and translated into ten languages, 50 Things to See with a Small Telescope explores the planets, stars, galaxies and nebulae observed at stargazing events around the globe. This delightful book covers the 50 things to see and some of them are: 'North Star, Venus, Orion Nebula, Mars, Jupiter, The Milky Way, Comets, the International Space Station, and even birds'.

We've been lied to. Now, he and hundreds of military personnel, scientists, and civilians who had top-secret access to Unacknowledged Special Access Projects (USAPs) have come forward with startling revelations about the greatest cover-up in human history in an attempt to prevent a false flag event in the works that – if unleashed – would make 9/11 look like a fender bender.Holding nothing back, Dr. Greer and his witnesses provide startling details about this unacknowledged chapter in history, energy and anti-gravitic systems, lunar bases, and black shelved technologies (purposely denied patents) that can transform our world...if we force their introduction into the free market.

According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets. Steinhardt and Turok, cosmologists at Princeton and Cambridge, respectively, present their case that string theory gives a more complete account of our origins; in this account, the big bang came about through the collision of two membrane-thick strings called "branes." According to the authors, this solves certain problems with the standard big bang theory, such as inflation, dark matter and dark energy. Their new theory has little chance of being confirmed experimentally in the foreseeable future, but many who eventually embraced the big bang will doubtless find the notion of cyclic universes and parallel worlds attractive. Moreover, while the regnant theory of the big bang predicts the eventual extinction of the universe, the dynamics of ekpyrosis promise a new beginning, a new cosmos--a trillion years from now.