PHONECALLS FROM SPACE

Joshua Winn. The Little Book of Exoplanets. Princeton University Press 2023.

In 1971 I took astronomy classes at Manchester University and one of my lecturers was Professor Zdenek Kopal. He was one of the first scientists in the then new age of space exploration trying to find ways to discover if any of the trillions of stars we know to exist had solar systems like our own and if any of those other suns had planets capable of supporting life like the Earth.

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HEAVEN'S TOUCH

James B Kaler. Heaven's Touch. From Killer Stars to the Seeds of Life, How We Are Connected to the Universe. Princeton Press. 2022 [Paperback]

This is a fascinating and informative book that explores the many ways in which the universe affects our planet and our lives. Kaler, an astronomer and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, writes in a clear and engaging style, and he does an excellent job of explaining complex scientific concepts in a way that is accessible to the lay reader.

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FOLLOWING THE FIERY TRAIL

Horace A. Smith. The Great Meteor Procession. The Author, 2023.

If an astronomer supplied an explanation for an anomalous astronomical phenomenon, we can nearly always rely on Charles Fort to come along and explain how he was probably wrong, and it must have been something very much more mysterious. And sometimes he had every reason to raise doubts, as we will see with the case of the Great Meteor Procession and Professor Clarence Augustus Chant.

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A MARTIAN TRAVELOGUE

Stephen James O'Meara. Mars. Reaktion Books. 2020.

This is a really excellent book that tells the story of how humans have interacted with the planet Mars from our early civilisations through the dawn of science, and up to modern day space missions that have landed there and crossed its surface digging up samples. This is all told in an engaging and well written manner by an award winning astronomer who even has an asteroid named after him.

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WHERE IS EVERYONE?

Wade Roush, Extraterrestrials. MIT Press, 2020.

Keith Cooper, The Contact Paradox; Challenging our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Bloomsbury, 2020.

Dan Farcus. Hyper-Civilizations, an Answer to ET Contacts on Earth. Flying Disc, 2019.

Extraterrestrials is a handy guide to the current status of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research. Wade looks at the history of our dreams and ideas about the existence of aliens, how SETI research began after World War II, the more recent discovery of extremophiles that exist in extreme environments on Earth (and possibly lurk elsewhere in our Solar System) and the increasing numbers of exoplanets being detected that might be the home to primitive life or even intelligent civilisations.

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MYTHSLAID

Bob King. Urban Legends from Space; The Biggest Myths About Space Demystified. Page Street Publishing, 2019.

I’m not sure whether the myths and misunderstanding about space described in this book actually constitute ‘urban legends’ within the meaning of the act, but they certainly include most of the elements of misinformation about the planets and stars that you are likely to come across.

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THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

Carolyn Collins Peterson. Discovery Of The Universe. Amberley Publishing. 2019.

This book charts the evolution of astronomy from sky watching to observatories throughout history and delivers an informative understanding of the primitive to the technological marvels used today to reveal the secrets of our Universe. The author shares her experience of astronomers that now routinely scan the cosmos for objects that existed from nearly the beginning of time: “There is stardust in your veins. We are literally, ultimately children of the stars”

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SECRETS IN THE STARS

Paul Murdin. The Secret Lives of Planets. Hodder and Stoughton, 2019

Paul Murdin is a policymaker for the UK government, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and also a commentator for the BBC. He draws on a lifetime of astronomy, which manifests in this clearly written description of the wonders of the universe.
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TARGET EARTH

Andrew May. Cosmic Impact: Understanding the Threat to Earth from Asteroids and Comets. Icon Books, 2019.

Twenty one years ago actress Tea Leoni stood on the east coast of the USA watching as a tsunami raced towards her across the ocean. She knew there was no escape from imminent death. Happily this was just a fictional climax to the Hollywood movie, Deep Impact, where human civilisation was about to be obliterated by a comet on collision course with Earth.

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WATCH THE SKIES

Jonathan Powell. Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds. Springer Nature, 2018

“Our ancestors lived and died by observations and rituals created around annual events in the sky.” “To acknowledge the sky and its perceived power, many sacrifices were made, all of which were observed with great timing and accuracy.” Thus begins our journey from the past to the present and on into the future. 

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GOD'S BLACK EYE

John Dvorak. Mask of the Sun: The Science, History and Forgotten Lore of Eclipses. Pegasus Books, 2017.

On 21 August 2017 a total solar eclipse will track across the United States, passing over twelves states, including five state capitals. As the day approaches, and 'eclipse fever' builds up, millions of Americans and visitors from around the world will make plans to see the awesome spectacle, hoping that the skies will be clear.
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ON THE LOOKOUT

John Asher Johnson. How Do You Find an Exoplanet? Princeton University Press, 2016.

The author was asked to write this book because of the large number of students who want to study exoplanetary science for the same reasons that exoplanets are so popular among the general public, because their interest has been aroused by science fiction and by the possibility of "answering some of humankind's most ancient questions about our place in the universe".
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FASTEN YOUR SEAT-BELTS!

Ian Niall Rankin. A New Look at the Solar System. Book Guild, 2015.

As if we didn't already have enough to worry about living on Planet Earth in these troublesome times, along comes yet another publication telling us that we're all doomed. Not from a man-made cause such as a Third World War, or the cumulative effects of the climate change purportedly taking place, but from a sudden polar shift of the planet that will wipe out all of civilisation.
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SEEING STARDUST

Jacob Berkowitz. The Stardust Revolution: The New Story of Our Origin in the Stars, Prometheus Books, 2012.

Until recently astronomy and biology were two entirely separate subjects, but there is now an increasing tendency to connect the study of the evolution of stars and planets to the study of the evolution of living organisms. To attempt to trace the processes which eventually led to the origin of life, it was first necessary to devise a sound theory to account for the origin of the elements.
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