Earths Astronomy

In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photos of the far side of the Moon. Even in their poor resolution, the images stunned scientists: The far side is an enormous mountainous expanse, not the vast lava plains seen from Earth. Subsequent missions have confirmed this in much greater detail. How could this be, and what might it tell us about our own place in the universe? As it turns out, quite a lot. When the Earth Had Two Moons is an astonishing exploration of planet formation and the origins of life by one of the world’s most innovative planetary geologists.

This “accessible and always entertaining” (Booklist) combination of history, pop science, and in-depth reporting offers a fascinating account of the asteroids that hit Earth long ago and those streaming toward us now, as well as how prepared we are against asteroid-caused catastrophe.

In his last book, Neil Shubin delved into the amazing connections between human anatomy—our hands, our jaws—and the structures in the fish that first took over land 375 million years ago. Now, with his trademark clarity and exuberance, he takes an even more expansive approach to the question of why we are the way we are.

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.

Earth, from space, looks like a shimmering gem suspended in an inky, infinite expanse. But this serene image masks the magnificent and volatile interior forces that make life possible for millions of species on the surface. The placid appearances of our neighboring planets similarly belie their powers—and science fiction-worthy features, like diamond rain.

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.

The sun's family of planets become a familiar place in this personal account of the lives of other worlds. Sobel explores the planets' origins and oddities through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history. This intimate account is filled with fascination, beauty, and surprise.

Some see dust as dull stuff, useless at best, and sneeze-inducing at worst. But in the hands of writer Hannah Holmes, dust becomes a dazzling and mysterious force. As Holmes says, dust is a messenger, and air is its medium. And by the end of this fascinating journey through The Secret Life of Dust, we cannot help but agree.

In 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copped phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time.

The astronauts headed to the moon in December 1972 thought they knew what to expect. They would soon be exploring the moon’s surface in a lunar rover, traveling farther than anyone before them. They would be collecting soil and rock samples for study back on Earth and could expect to learn about the moon’s physical makeup and age.

This is Issue 98 of Cosmos, a quarterly science magazine. Produced by The Royal Institution of Australia, Cosmos aims to inspire curiosity in "The Science of Everything" and make the world of science accessible to everyone.

Mars, the red planet, is ingrained in our culture, from David Bowie's extra-terrestrial spiders to Captain Scarlet to War of the Worlds. It has inspired hundreds of authors, scientists and science-fiction writers - but why? What is it about this particular planet that makes it so intriguing? Ancient mythologies defined Mars as a violent harbinger of war, star-gazers puzzled over its peculiar motion, and astrologers defined human personalities by its position and bizarre dance through the sky.

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.

In researching one of history's greatest scientific quests, a mission to measure the Earth and define the meter, Ken Alder stumbled on a 200-year-old secret: The meter, it turns out, is in error. This is a story of two men, a secret, and a timeless human dilemma: is it permissible to perpetuate a small lie in the service of a larger truth?

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.

Satellites may exist out in space, but they let us study Earth from the outside looking in. From climate change to natural disasters and more, find out how scientists are using satellites to tackle some of our world's most challenging problems.

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.

Mind Openers 2.0 is the second installment in a two-part set. It takes a fresh look at relativity, cosmology, and quantum theory by imagining a “sandbox universe”, in which space and time are treated as tangible and visualizable phenomena. In addition to providing an intuitive feel for the physics, the model makes a number of acutely unexpected predictions. The author is a geophysicist (MSc, fellow of geoscientists, Canada) and educator, who specializes in translating scientific material for the non-expert.

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.

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.