Space Science

The comparative utopia of 23rd-century Earth is about to go dreadfully awry when a seemingly benign alien race is abruptly revealed to be one of the worst threats humanity has ever faced. Driven by an intense religious extremism, the Olyix are determined to bring everyone to their version of god as they see it. But they may have met their match in humanity, who are not about to go gently into that good night or spend the rest of their days cowering in hiding.

On the planet of Taldain, the legendary Sand Masters harness arcane powers to manipulate sand in spectacular ways. But when they are slaughtered in a sinister conspiracy, the weakest of their number, Kenton, believes himself to be the only survivor. With enemies closing in on all sides, Kenton forges an unlikely partnership with Khriss - a mysterious Darksider who hides secrets of her own.

Includes books one through four in the AL:ICE series: AL:ICE, AL:ICE-9, AL:ICE: Resurrection, and AL:ICE: Space War.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a talent for guiding readers through the mysteries of outer space with stunning clarity and almost childlike enthusiasm. This collection of his essays from Natural History magazine explores a myriad of cosmic topics. Tyson introduces us to the physics of black holes by explaining what would happen to our bodies if we fell into one; he also examines the needless friction between science and religion, and notes Earth's status as "an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos".

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.

The Battle of Serenity Valley was the turning point that led the Independents to their defeat at the hands of the Alliance. Yet the Browncoats had held the valley for weeks against all odds, before being ordered to lay down their arms. Command stated they refused to send in airpower because the ground war was "too hot". But the soldiers who were there insist that was not true.... While picking up a new cargo on Persephone, Captain Malcolm Reynolds is kidnapped by a bunch of embittered veteran Browncoats who suspect him of sabotaging the Independents during the war.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Albert Einstein described Relativity as a "popular explosion" of his famous theory. Written in 1916, it introduced the lay audience to the remarkable perspective which had overturned theoretical physics. Einstein's genius was to express this perspective in understandable terms.

The colonists from the Pathfinder have arrived on Kaguya, a planet with low gravity but a very dense atmosphere. It’s fun to jump around, but the air makes you loopy - and worse than that, the heavy atmosphere means that wind storms, although rare, are absolutely devastating. Zero and Nyx help to get everything locked down before the first big storm, but they stumble onto a group of thieves who have stolen some mining equipment. Before the kids have a chance to get away and tell anyone, the storm hits and the massive winds carry them far away.

Zero, Nyx, and the other Pathfinder colonists have adjusted to life on Kaguya. But Earth has built much faster starships-the Dreamcatcher arrives 10 years early, and the Stargazer arrives so early it actually got there before the Pathfinder did! Now the Stargazer is a lost shipwreck, and the race is on to find it, and who should show up looking for it but Nyx's dangerous family: Big Mama, Jim, and Kratt. Nyx and Zero will face kidnappers, pirates, shipwrecks, warlords, dragons, and maybe a new ally or two on their way to save the day once again.

To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race.

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword. But books won't protect him from Her Imperial Majesty Lionstone XIV, who just outlawed and condemned Owen to death, without any explanation, reason, or warning. No wonder she's called the Iron Bitch. Now, on the run from Imperial starcruisers, shady mercenaries, and just about everyone else in the Empire, Owen's options are limited.

This new and long-awaited sequel to Carl Sagan's international best seller continues the electrifying journey through space and time, linking worlds within and worlds billions of miles away and envisioning a future of science tempered with wisdom. Based on National Geographic's internationally-renowned television series, this groundbreaking and visually stunning book explores how science and civilization grew up together.

When a scientist is murdered after finding signs of alien magic in an archeological dig, Mage Damien Montgomery, Hand of the Mage-King of Mars, is sent to investigate both the murder and the alien runes. His investigation is interrupted when a mysterious ship attacks the ruins with weapons only available to the Martian Navy. Despite saving the dig site, Montgomery is left with more questions than answers.

Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone and perhaps 400 billion galaxies in the universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of these extraterrestrials?

All the matter and light we can see in the universe makes up a trivial five per cent of everything. The rest is hidden. This could be the biggest puzzle that science has ever faced. Since the 1970s, astronomers have been aware that galaxies have far too little matter in them to account for the way they spin around: they should fly apart, but something concealed holds them together. That ’something' is dark matter - invisible material in five times the quantity of the familiar stuff of stars and planets.

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center.

Authors Christopher Knight and Alan Butler realized that the ancient system of geometry they presented in their earlier breakthrough study works as perfectly for the Moon as it does the Earth. On further investigation, they found a consistent sequence of beautiful integer numbers when looking at every major aspect of the Moon - no such pattern emerges for any other planet or moon in the solar system. In addition, Knight and Butler discovered that the Moon possesses few or no heavy metals and has no core - something that should not be possible.

This third edition to the Prince Roger Series takes the Bronze Barbarians across the Eastern Ocean of Marduk, facing giant sea monsters, pirates, and the barbarian nations that dwell on the other side. Their destination is a spaceport held by humans of questionable loyalties. As Roger comes nearer to making his way home, he learns that his attempted assassination was part of a larger plot. Not all is as it seems on Earth or on Marduk.