helium

Book review – Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond

6-minute read

If volcanoes make you giddy, then this is the book for you. Robin George Andrews is that rare hybrid of the scientist–journalist: a volcanologist who decided to focus on science communication after completing his PhD. Super Volcanoes combines scientific exactitude with engaging writing and is a tour of some exceptional volcanoes on Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System. Andrews starts it with an unabashedly enthusiastic mission statement: “I want you to feel unbridled glee as these stories sink in and an indelible grin flashes across your face as you think: holy crap, that’s crazy!” (p. xxi). For me, he nailed it and I found this an incredibly satisfying read.

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Book review – Fire & Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System

7-minute read

What could be more awe-inspiring than volcanoes? How about volcanoes in space? Having previously raved about asteroids, geologist and cosmochemist Natalie Starkey returns to Bloomsbury Sigma for her second book. Here, she takes readers not just on a Solar System tour of volcanoes, but also walks them through the processes that make a volcano and how these processes play out in extraterrestrial settings.

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Book review – Life in the Cosmos: From Biosignatures to Technosignatures

8-minute read

Are we alone in the universe? For the moment, this question remains unanswered, though there are many ways to tackle it. Just how many was something I did not appreciate until I sunk my teeth into Harvard University Press’s new flagship astronomy title Life in the Cosmos. Written by astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam and theoretical physicist Abraham “Avi” Loeb, this is a book of truly colossal proportions, clocking in at over 1000 pages. It boldly goes where few academic books have gone before by seriously and open-mindedly considering the possibility of extraterrestrial technological intelligence on par with, or far beyond humans. I found myself gravitating towards this book on account of more than just its size.

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Book review – First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time

8-minute read

In the early days of the universe, there was darkness. Until somebody said, “let there be light”? Not quite. In First Light, astrophysicist Emma Chapman introduces you to ongoing research into the first billion years of our Universe and the birth of the first stars. Popular science at its finest, this book challenged me pleasantly but was above all—with apologies for the terrible pun—enlightening.

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