Amazon.co.uk Review
Astronomers and space scientists have made some astonishing discoveries in the past few years, and
Extreme Universe, a beautifully illustrated companion to the Channel 4 series, captures the sense of excitement. Propelled by the twin goals of finding life on other planets and preserving life on our own, spacecraft are exploring our solar system while telescopes peer into the most distant reaches of space and time. As biologists discover microbes capable of surviving in the depths of Earth's oceans or in hot, acidic springs, it seems increasingly possible that some form of life might exist on Mars or beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. But life is under constant threat. Massive solar flares, or a nearby supernova, could wipe out all higher life in a radiation storm; near-Earth asteroids sometimes collide with us, as is the case with the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs; and vast cosmic events far away across the galaxy can affect us. Nigel Henbest and Heather Couper, both trained scientists themselves, interview dozens of scientists working at the frontiers of knowledge, following their search for planets circling other stars, the race to track near-Earth asteroids and the ongoing attempts to uncover how the universe itself began. As an introduction to the subject,
Extreme Universe works well, but it's a pity that there are no suggestions for further reading or links to any of the excellent astronomical sites available on the Web for those who want find out more.--
Elizabeth Sourbut
Review
This is an exploration of the most violent and inhospitable corners of the universe. The photography is amazing, full of images that only space can provide. Massive red and orange universes rising against the blackness of space; alien worlds against a background speckled with small dots of light; asteroids hurtling through space, leaving trails behind them... The statistics too are mind-boggling. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains 200,000 million stars - but we can't hope to visit even the nearest one in the foreseeable future; Venus is the same size as Earth but its average temperature is 460 degrees Celsius; one planet is so close to the sun that its year is only four days long. Even more striking are the descriptions of star death and its frightening consequences: hypernovae, the most powerful explosions since the Big Bang; magnetars, short-lived stars with magnetic fields billions of times more powerful than Earth's; and black holes, which emit lethal antimatter into space. A book that alternately terrifies and exhilarates, this is an unforgettable trip into the dark recesses of our universe. (Kirkus UK)
See all Product Description
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home
