Earth Space Science

Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts offers an insider's guide to astronauting—a behind-the-scenes look at the training, the basic rules, lessons, and procedures of space travel, including how to deal with a dead body in space, what it’s like to film an IMAX movie in orbit, what exactly to do when nature calls, and much more, in 51 brief chapters.

I thought the hard part of helping the Helta defeat the rampaging Tevynians would be the fighting. How wrong I was. To the Helta, we Earthers look just like the Tevynians, their mortal enemies. And convincing their government to ally with humans may be even beyond the crew of the starship James Bowie. But the clock is ticking, because the Tevynian fleet is bearing down on the Helta homeworld. If we can’t talk the Helta into accepting our help to fight them off, then Helta Prime will fall.... And Earth will be next.

With wonder, wit, and flair - and in record time and space - geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth's atmosphere and oceans to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scientific intrigue, rocketing listeners across nearly 14 billion years and making connections between the essential theories that give us our current understanding of topics as varied as particle physics, plate tectonics, and photosynthesis.

The Sun gives life to our planet, but it also produces some amazing phenomena. From sun dogs and green flash to solar flares and sunspots, The Science Behind Wonders of the Sun looks at some of these phenomena, explaining how and why they occur.

The war between the seven alien races of the Confederation and Earth heats up as the two come into direct conflict over the former Human Empire. The people or Earth are determined to free it, and the Confederation is determined to keep it under their strict control. Fleets meet in combat as the fate of worlds is decided. Earth is hopelessly outmatched as the Confederation controls thousands of inhabited planets.

The battle lines are collapsing, and the Legion of Wolves cannot hold back the tide. Luna and Earth are both falling to the enemy, and there is little hope as the defense is pushed back on all sides. But when Wolf learns about a race in a distant part of the galaxy that has successfully fought the vanhat to a standstill, he decides to launch an expedition to seek their help. The AI Collective has also learned about the expedition, though, and intends to kill humanity before they can find aid.

When Darius’ newly founded colony on Umbria Prime is attacked, he fights off the raiders and finds clues that humanity’s old foes–the Iglax–are to blame. Once again, he’s got to return to the galaxy at large to upgrade his ships, advance his skills, and spread humanity further among the stars.

This audiobook begins with the question "Who am I?" and immediately sets off in an astonishingly original direction. Why didn't anyone before Harding think of responding to this question like this? It's so obvious, once you see it. Harding presents a new vision of our place in the universe that uses the scientific method of looking to see what is true. It turns out that the truth about ourselves is not only true but also very good, and breathtakingly beautiful. We live in a sacred, many-layered, living universe - or rather it lives in us.

Former elite Federation soldier, now turned space pirate, Jackson Burke has done his best to turn his life around - for the better. He isn't prepared when fate leaves a woman's safety totally in his hands. Since heroes don't leave a damsel in distress - and despite being outlaw pirates - the crew considers themselves the good guys, so Jackson assumes responsibility for the beauty.

Earth is rising in the House of Voltar.... And there’ll be hell to pay! That’s right. The invasion is on...and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near you. The action couldn’t be hotter, and the plot couldn’t be more diabolical. Earth is coming to Voltar - and the Voltarians won’t know what hit them. Murder, blackmail, drugs, psychoanalysis, PR firms, sex-crazed teenyboppers, riots in the streets, women in chains. These are the powerful secret weapons of war.

As end-of-the-world scenarios go, an apocalyptic collision with an asteroid or comet is the new kid on the block, gaining respectability only in the last decade of the 20th century with the realization that the dinosaurs were wiped out by just such an impact. Now the science community is making up for lost time, with worldwide efforts to track the thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects and plans for high-tech hardware that could deflect an incoming object from a collision course.

Welcome to the alien zoo. In here, you’ll meet a variety of life from across the universe. Floating balloons of flesh from a gas giant’s storm. Sentient moss that controls golems of stone. Towering arachnids whose webs can entangle starships. And in one enclosure… humans. Us. This zoo, you see, is run by powerful aliens. To the zookeepers, we are mere animals. Marco, Addy, and Einav are soldiers. Together, they fought many wars. And won them all. But now they’re trapped in a cage. Disarmed. Demeaned. Animals on display.

Beliefs about the shape of the earth have varied over the millennia, but the Ancient Greeks were able to observe that our planet is round and even Eratosthenes attempted to measure its size. It was not until explorers had fully charted the globe that most people were really able to comprehend its spherical shape.

What causes Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? How have volcanoes shaped the land on many planets? How do space shuttles launch and dock with space stations? This series introduces young listeners to the objects within our solar system and the tools people use to explore the mysteries of space. This volume includes Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, and Saturn.

Earth is in turmoil. The enemy is bearing down on us with every warship they have, and our only allies are in chaos. Our one hope for survival is Andy Clanton - a hack science fiction writer trying to convince some aliens that humans are worth saving. It’s an uphill battle, because to the aliens, we are the monsters. We look just like their sworn enemies, the Tevynians, who’ve sworn to wipe out both our civilizations. When everything falls apart and the fate of the galaxy is on the line, can Andy Clanton pull our fat out of the fire?

We've pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it's not just rocket science, this book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rights, and medical ethics, among others.

They say that necessity is the mother of all inventions. Amir Weatherby has the world in his hands, quite literally. When his company discovers an asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth, they decide to keep the news quiet and find a way to survive the impending apocalypse themselves. Secret projects begin with the intent of preventing the world going the same way as the dinosaurs.

A huge space station orbits the Earth, holding the last of humanity. It's broken, rusted, falling apart. We've wrecked our planet, and now we have to live with the consequences: a new home that's dirty, overcrowded, and inescapable. What's more, there's a madman hiding on the station. He's about to unleash chaos. And when he does, there'll be nowhere left to run.

Today, we take for granted that a telescope allows us to see galaxies millions of light years away. But before its invention, people used nothing more than their naked eye to fathom what took place in the visible sky. So how did four men in the 1500s - of different nationality, age, religion, and class - collaborate to discover that the Earth revolved around the Sun? With this radical discovery that went against the Church, they created our contemporary world. Heaven on Earth is an intimate examination of this scientific family.

In Beyond Earth, the authors offer groundbreaking research and argue persuasively that not Mars but Titan - a moon of Saturn with a nitrogen atmosphere, a weather cycle, and an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy, where we will be able to fly like birds in the minimal gravitational field - offers the most realistic and thrilling prospect of life without support from Earth.