New astronomy and space titles reviewed
The Alien Perspective
David Whitehouse Icon Books
£17.99 HB
Are we alone in the Universe? The possibility of intelligent aliens has fascinated humanity for centuries, but David Whitehouse’s new book takes a refreshingly different approach to the subject. The former BBC science correspondent considers not only the familiar questions about life elsewhere in our cosmic neighbourhood, but also what our speculations on the subject reveal about humanity, and the profound shifts in perspective that might come from the confirmation of extraterrestrial life.
Whitehouse’s canvas is broad and painted with a wealth of historical and scientific details, as he leads our attention seamlessly from one aspect of his varied subject to another. Here, a rumination on the relationship between our prehistoric ancestors and the cosmos; there, an account of early attempts at SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Companion chapters near the start and end take the reader through imaginary museums chronicling the astonishing variety of life on Earth, and the myriad possible paths that might be taken by life on other worlds. There are discussions of the religious and diplomatic fallout from contact with intelligent life, to the design of our own attempts at communication.
Whitehouse’s background in radio astronomy makes him well suited to give an account of detection and communication efforts that are still heavily focused on ‘big dish’ astronomy, but other possibilities – the detection of ‘technosignatures’ around distant stars and even alien spacecraft (crewed or automated) visiting our Solar System – are also considered. Often-complex ideas are explained with clarity and precision, but this is clearly a passion project for the author, and the book soars where he deploys more poetic language, as when musing on the deeper themes that arise from his central question. This is nowhere more appropriate than in the final chapters, where Whitehouse considers the possibilities of life outlasting the stars around which it is born, and how it might find ways of surviving to the ends of the Universe itself.
If you’ve ever looked up at the sky and pondered on the big questions of life in the Universe, this is essential reading.
Giles Sparrow is a writer and author on popular science
Interview with the author David Whitehouse
How has the telescope changed humanity?
From Galileo’s crude ‘optik tube’ 400 years ago to the James Webb Space Telescope, the telescope in its various forms has shown us our true place in the cosmos. Once we strained to discern the features on Mars. Now we contemplate scrutinising the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars a billion, billion times further away. No other scientific instrument has done so much to place our species into its cosmic context.
Are we on the cusp of finding life beyond Earth?
We do not know where we will find the first signs of other life in the cosmos. Perhaps we’ll discover microbes deep below the radiationblasted sands of Mars, or life signs in the spectral bands of planets circling nearby stars. Will it be a message in radio form, a laser flash or a stream of quantum-entangled particles? Perhaps we’ll find an artefact of a long-dead race or be visited by alien spacecraft. It could happen today, or never.
What would it mean to discover intelligent life?
How would beings, born under the light of another star, or in the spaces in between them, view the cosmos and ourselves? Could we ever know them or would they forever be a mystery of the adjacent possible? The view of humanity through an alien eye might be something that could liberate or terrify us. Until we find them we will not be ready, and afterwards it will be too late.
Stars and Planets
Ian Ridpath DK
£9.99 PB
Ian Ridpath is one of the biggest names in astronomy. With over 40 books under his belt, he knows what he’s talking about, communicating a range of subjects to amateur astronomers with ease. His handbook, Stars and Planets, is split into the Solar System, the constellations and monthly sky guides. It concisely explains the basics, offering the beginner a fine introduction to star formation, nebulae, the celestial sphere and how to use your hand as an astronomical measuring scale. The two-page binocular and telescope guide is enough to help any keen observer get to grips with the equipment available to them. In the Solar System section, each planet is described including concise facts about atmosphere, climate, geography and geology, and charts present the location of each one in the morning and evening sky from 2022 to 2033. High praise needs to be given to the pages dedicated to the 88 constellations. The reader is invited to learn about their mythology, their position in the sky and how to view features of interest within each one, such as deep-sky objects. The brilliant monthly sky charts in the last section of the book will help you locate the constellations throughout the year. The layout and detail of Stars and Planets is simply wonderful. If you are looking for an imaginative astronomy book packed with easy-to-understand text, beautiful glossy images and useful star charts then you’ve found it.
Katrin Raynor Evans is an astronomy communicator and writer
What is Dark Matter?
Peter Fisher Princeton University Press
£28 HB
Scientists have known about dark matter for nearly 40 years. They have confirmed its existence by observing its gravitational effect on galaxies and understand that it makes up 27 per cent of the mass-energy of the Universe, but they are still unsure what it is. So writing a book titled What is Dark Matter? would seem perverse. However, this is a very scholarly look at the historical theories, research and experiments on the evidence for, and the properties of, dark matter.
The book is fast-paced and the reader will need to concentrate to keep up. There are few helpful analogies and no handholding. Knowledge of scientific notation and mathematical expressions, and being able to understand complex diagrams and equations is assumed. It is well worth taking the time to get to grips with the principles laid out in the first chapter before moving on, and there is a useful glossary of terms to guide you.
The book is very well written. It takes you through the problems of uniting dark matter with the Standard Model via supersymmetry and Modified Newtonian dynamics. It details the ongoing search for WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) and axions, explaining the need for bigger, more sensitive detectors and telescopes, with longer observing runs, to find them.
This is not a book for a novice; a grounding in astrophysics is helpful but not essential. By the end, you will have a better understanding, not of what dark matter is, but at least of what dark matter isn’t and what it might be.
Jenny Winder is a freelance science writer, astronomer and broadcaster
Astronomy: A Beginner’s Guide
William H Waller Oneworld £9.99 PB
This beautiful little book offers, as its name suggests, a beginner’s guide to the Universe. And author William Waller, with a sturdy academic background in astrophysics and astronomy, goes about his task with gusto. He comprehensively introduces the wonders of the cosmos, venturing steadily outward from Earth, to the wider Solar System, to the barely comprehensible infinity beyond.
By his own admission, Astronomy: A Beginner’s Guide is intended by Waller to be “digestible” for the growing legions of sky-watchers – “not quite one in a million, but certainly getting there”– as this oldest-known science gains new traction in the 21st century. Both the book and Waller himself are clearly driven by what he describes as “the ever-compelling wonders of the night sky”.
He traces our study of the heavens wheeling above our heads over multiple nations, cultures and millennia, looking first at the peculiarities of our own world as a convenient and relatable point of reference, then migrating outward on a journey to take in the Sun, “a god over mortals”, the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, “bullies on the block”, and the wider Universe far beyond, including the lure of life.
Waller heartily regales us with tales of his own experiences, notably sitting in a carpeted, windowless room at the University of Washington one sweltering August night in 1989 when “the first transmitted images of Neptune, from Neptune” arrived, via Voyager 2.
All in all, this exquisite gem dips its toe often enough into a complex mire of scientific and mathematical minutiae to maintain strong intellectual rigour, yet its core remains sufficiently readable to sustain and fire the interest of the non-academic reader.
Ben Evans is a science and astronomy writer and the author of several books