An offbeat guided tour of the Universe, focusing on weird and wonderful facts. Astrophysicist Dr Jillian Scudder knows more than most of us what a surreal place the Universe can be. In this light-hearted book she delves into some of the more arcane facts that her work has revealed, and tells us how we have actually managed to discover these amazing truths. Did you know: the galaxy is flatter than a credit card; supermassive black holes can sing a super-low B flat; it rains iron on a brown dwarf, and diamonds on Neptune; you could grow turnips on Mars if its soil weren't full of rocket fuel; the Universe is beige, on average; Jupiter's magnetic field will short-circuit your spacecraft - and, of course, the Milky Way smells of rum and raspberries.

In this enthralling cosmic journey through space and time, astrophysicist Jillian Scudder locates our home planet within its own 'family tree'. Our parent the Earth and its sibling planets in our solar system formed within the same gas cloud. Without our grandparent the Sun, we would not exist, and the Sun in turn relies on the Milky Way as its home. The Milky Way rests in a larger web of galaxies that traces its origins right back to tiny fluctuations in the very early universe. Following these cosmic connections, we discover the many ties that bind us to our universe. Based around readers' questions from the author's popular blog 'Astroquizzical', the book provides a quirky guide to how things work in the universe and why things are the way they are, from shooting stars on Earth, to black holes, to entire galaxies. For anyone interested in the 'big picture' of how the cosmos functions and how it is all connected, Jillian Scudder is the perfect guide.

In this enthralling cosmic journey through space and time, astrophysicist Jillian Scudder locates our home planet within its own ‘family tree’. Our parent the Earth and its sibling planets in our solar system formed within the same gas cloud.

Without our grandparent the Sun, we would not exist, and the Sun in turn relies on the Milky Way as its home. The Milky Way rests in a larger web of galaxies that traces its origins right back to tiny fluctuations in the very early universe. Following these cosmic connections, we discover the many ties that bind us to our universe.

Based around readers’ questions from the author’s popular blog ‘Astroquizzical’, the book provides a quirky guide to how things work in the universe and why things are the way they are, from shooting stars on Earth, to black holes, to entire galaxies. For anyone interested in the ‘big picture’ of how the cosmos functions and how it is all connected, Jillian Scudder is the perfect guide.

A beautifully illustrated, enlightening edition of astronomer Jillan Scudder's exploration of our universe. Looking up at the night sky, it is almost impossible to imagine that we can trace our common ancestry with the distant stars and galaxies back over 13.8 billion years. Astroquizzical explores this connection by travelling back through the generations of the cosmic family tree, from Earth (parent) to the stars (grandparents), galaxies (great grandparents) and first atoms of the Big Bang (great-great grandparents). On the journey, the reader is invited to become 'astroquizzical' by asking the questions and investigating the many scientific mysteries of how the universe was formed and how it works. This updated and illustrated edition combines beautifully curated space images with ten sketchbook 'thought experiments' to create a uniquely accessible guide to the science of Earth's place among the planets, stars, and galaxies.

An offbeat guided tour of the Universe, focusing on weird and wonderful facts. Astrophysicist Dr Jillian Scudder knows more than most of us what a surreal place the Universe can be. In this light-hearted book she delves into some of the more arcane facts that her work has revealed, and tells us how we have actually managed to discover these amazing truths. Did you know: the galaxy is flatter than a credit card; supermassive black holes can sing a super-low B flat; it rains iron on a brown dwarf, and diamonds on Neptune; you could grow turnips on Mars if its soil weren't full of rocket fuel; the Universe is beige, on average; Jupiter's magnetic field will short-circuit your spacecraft - and, of course, the Milky Way smells of rum and raspberries.