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Back to Astronomy Cafe
How fast does gravity travel? When will the sun go nova? Who invented the light year? Will we ever travel to the stars? These are just some of the unusual and popular questions NASA astronomer Sten Odenwald answers in Back to the Astronomy Café, based on his award-winning website "for the astronomically disadvantaged." Since his acclaimed earlier book The Astronomy Café published in 1998, the space community has been turned on its head with entirely new discoveries: ion propulsion, dark matter, gravity and magnetic reversals, the Cosmic Dark Ages, and over 100 new planets. In the all-new Back to the Astronomy Café, Odenwald answers the latest and most-asked questions relating to these recent discoveries. His highly personal and authoritative style makes understanding the cosmos less intimidating, exciting, and fun.Since he opened his website "The Astronomy Café" in 1995, Odenwald has answered over 50,000 e-mailed questions. His individual answers have been downloaded over 7.5 million times, making him the most sought-after "answer man" for astronomy in human history.
288 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 29, 2016
This is the second book rom this author. Basically, he has an astronomy Q&A website, and then (apparently) collated the Qs&As into chapters and cuts and pastes them into books!
The author is an entertaining writer who obviously has a sense of humor and an ability to communicate complex astronomical topics in lay terms so that at least 85% of the time I could understand what he was taking about. For the other 15%, I just looked up the topic to achieve greater understanding, or sometimes just chose to remain mystified.
Given that most of my daily reading sources are spiritual in nature, I always enjoyed reading this book last, as it's scientific perspective generally served as an effective counterpoint to the other half-dozen books I was reading.
My only complaint is that there was no Kindle version available. While I did not enjoy this book quite as much as the original book, which was structured around more basic astronomy topics, I would read a third should he choose to publish one (it has been 10 years since the last one and I am sure there have been plenty of astronomical developments) as long as it is available as an e-book.
The author is an entertaining writer who obviously has a sense of humor and an ability to communicate complex astronomical topics in lay terms so that at least 85% of the time I could understand what he was taking about. For the other 15%, I just looked up the topic to achieve greater understanding, or sometimes just chose to remain mystified.
Given that most of my daily reading sources are spiritual in nature, I always enjoyed reading this book last, as it's scientific perspective generally served as an effective counterpoint to the other half-dozen books I was reading.
My only complaint is that there was no Kindle version available. While I did not enjoy this book quite as much as the original book, which was structured around more basic astronomy topics, I would read a third should he choose to publish one (it has been 10 years since the last one and I am sure there have been plenty of astronomical developments) as long as it is available as an e-book.
August 21, 2010
A grownup's guide to the universe, answering questions that some of us have when we look up at the sky. I love astronomy, and this is entertaining, informative, and chock full of interesting trivia. And who better to author such a fantastic book than NASA astronomer Sten Odenwald.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews