Astronomy History

In 1929, a 22-year-old maverick named Frank Whittle - a self-taught aeronautical obsessive and risk-takingly brilliant RAF pilot - presented a blueprint for a revolutionary, jet-powered aircraft engine to the Air Ministry. His idea had the potential to change the course of history, but it was summarily rejected. In this meticulously researched biography, Duncan Campbell-Smith charts Whittle's stoic efforts to build his jet engine in the interwar years.

Have you ever looked into the night sky and wished that you could walk on the Moon? Find about what it is like from the astronauts that were first to do it! Learn about how Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins traveled into space and created history in 1969, and what it was like to take those famous first steps that made “one giant leap for mankind."

In the early 1990s, Motorola, the legendary American technology company, developed a revolutionary satellite system called Iridium that promised to be its crowning achievement. Light-years ahead of anything previously put into space, and built on technology developed for Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars", Iridium's constellation of 66 satellites in polar orbit meant that no matter where you were on Earth, at least one satellite was always overhead, and you could call Tibet from Fiji without a delay and without your call ever touching a wire.

In the tradition of Daniel Boorstin, the co-founder of Omni delivers an original work of history that demonstrates why modern science rests on a foundation built by ancient and medieval non-European societies. "If you think that modern science is rooted in the golden age of Greece, you owe it to yourself to [hear this] book," says Library Journal.

How to Love the Universe is a new kind of science writing by an author truly enamored of the world around him. In 10 short chapters of lyrical prose - each one an ode to a breathtaking realm of discovery - Stefan Klein uses everyday objects and events as a springboard to meditate on the beauty of the underlying science.

In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the 20th century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars.

The first operational military jet in the world, toward the end of the Second World War, the Me 262 was to be the German "miracle weapon". Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training, and even served in it operationally. Could the Me 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which discloses how the first military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II.

In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure.

A respected physics professor and author breaks down the great debate over the big bang and the continuing quest to understand the fate of the universe.

Galileo's oldest child was 13 when he placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her support was her father's greatest source of strength. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then. Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose 17th-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion.

From a launchpad in Florida to the lunar surface ... Two cartoon flies join listeners as they blast off into space and step foot on the moon with Neil Armstrong, providing a blend of facts and fun while telling the story of a great moment in space-exploration history.

In October 1968 Donn Eisele flew with fellow astronauts Walt Cunningham and Wally Schirra into Earth orbit in Apollo 7. The first manned mission in the Apollo program and the first manned flight after a fire during a launch pad test killed three astronauts in early 1967, Apollo 7 helped restart NASA's manned-spaceflight program.

Outposts on the Frontier reveals how the Soviets and the Americans combined strengths to build space stations over the past 50 years. At the heart of these scientific advances are people of both greatness and modesty. Jay Chladek documents the historical tapestry of the people, the early attempts at space station programs, and how astronauts and engineers have contributed to and shaped the ISS in surprising ways.

In this summary of A Short History of Nearly Everything: Bryson describes graphically and in layperson's terms the size of the universe and that of atoms and subatomic particles. He then explores the history of geology and biology and traces life from its first appearance to today's modern humans, placing emphasis on the development of the modern Homo sapiens. Furthermore, he discusses the possibility of the Earth being struck by a meteorite and reflects on human capabilities of spotting a meteor before it impacts the Earth....

Paris, 1534. A student at the Catholic Collge de Montaigu, serving as a courier for the Inquisition, is murdered by members of an extreme Lutheran sect for the packet of letters he is carrying. His friend and fellow classmate Amaury de Faverges, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Savoy and an expert in astronomy and natural science, is recruited as his replacement and promised a decree of legitimacy if he can uncover the secret that threatens to overturn Catholicism and the reign of Franois I.

Scott Kelly, an American astronaut, went to space in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2015, he spent nearly a year in space. While there, his body was compared to his twin's on the ground. The data helped us learn about the impacts of space on the human body. Learn more about Kelly's life as an astronaut!

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankind. At 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon.

Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years is a lighthearted nonfiction audiobook about the formation and history of the world--told from the perspective of the Earth itself! "Hi, I’m Earth! But you can call me Planet Awesome." Prepare to learn all about Earth from the point-of-view of Earth herself!...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE (and our place in it) tells the story of our search for meaning in a sprawling cosmic ocean. From ancient astrology to the Copernican revolution, from dark matter to our search for life outside of earth, it will take you on a journey through the discoveries that have propelled and continually overturned our understanding of the cosmos, the nature of reality, and ourselves.