Your Ticket to the Universe: A Guide to Exploring the Cosmos

by Kimberly K. Arcand, Megan Watzke, Mario Livio (Foreword)

An entertaining and accessible trip to the most interesting stops in the cosmos. Accompanied by dramatic visuals, Your Ticket to the Universe is a hybrid coffee-table book and field guide.Beginning with our home planet, Your Ticket to the Universe embarks on an entertaining and accessible trip to the most interesting stops known in the cosmos. Learn about objects nearby within our Solar System (our backyard in space, so to speak) as well as wonders that are found throughout the Milky Way galaxy and beyond (the most distant and exotic lands to explore). Accompanied by brilliant photographs that bring the reading experience to vivid, immediate life, Your Ticket to the Universe is designed to make space exploration accessible to everyone. Your Ticket to the Universe outlines the essentials anyone needs to know, while piquing the reader's curiosity to learn more.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Space, Reference

239 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Kim was working in biology and public health when she was hired for a job with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in 1998. Since she always wanted to be an astronaut when she was little, this opportunity got Kim close to the cosmos but without the hazards of a long distance commute. Today, Kim uses data to tell stories about science, whether in the form of a 3D model of an exploded star, a tweet about how fireflies glow, or a book about light. Kim's latest book "Magnitude: The Scale of the Universe," ( Magnitude: The Scale of the Universe) co-authored with Megan Watzke will be out November 7, 2017!

Reviews

[Kimberly Arcand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so excited to see my book on Goodreads! Feels unreal :) I'm sure it's tacky to rate my own book, so please excuse this first-time author dorkiness.

[Sky Thibedeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Guide to Exploring the Cosmos" is the "Cosmos" for the 21st Century. Having access to new scientific information Carl Sagan could have only dreamed of, the authors have taken us on a tour from our own lonely back yard to the starry hosts of trillions of galaxies incomprehensible light years away.

We start off with our own little world, the Earth. The authors look back on the beginning of the Solar System and how the planets were formed. They visit several forbidding places on earth such as the vents in the black chimneys of undersea volcanoes and life found in methane seeps in the Gulf of Mexico which could appropriate how life might exist elsewhere in the solar system such as Europa or another moon of the gas giants.

They take us to the moon and the sun and we learn how each impacts life on Earth. We see the powerful fury of the closest star and how it impacts our Earth and our Solar System.

We get a tour of the planets and their moons. We learn several interesting tidbits about each. We visit the asteroids and the Kuiper belt and our old friend the Pluto formerly known as a Planet.

We visit our home Galaxy the Milky Way and discover the life cycle of stars and the types of Galaxies. We learn about super novas and red dwarfs (sans Rimmer and Kryton). We see the theories about Dark Energy and Dark Matter.

The book is very enjoyable even for lay people. It is greatly enhanced by pictures and graphics on each page. There are many fabulous, breathtaking pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope which are alone good reason to add the book to your home library (there are also detailed explanations on how the pictures are taken using different kinds of light).

It is a very nice book for the coffee table and young scientists.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your Ticket to the Universe is a wonderfully crafted book on the mysteries of the Universe. Starting close to home, and moving farther and farther out, some of the coolest facts we know of are laid out in quite plain language. The most stunning thing about this book, however, is the gorgeous pictures of planets, galaxies and so on. Recommended because of it's great photographs and easy to understand descriptions of massively complicated topics.

[Vaibhav · Rating 4 out of 5]

This visually compelling book serves reading experiences as exactly as its name says. It is like you are in Africa and never want to miss a day for wildlife safari, likewise you happen to be born curious on an Earth and never want to miss this quick safari of Cosmos through space worth billions years of time.

[Nerd Theory · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had many photos and illustrations. Your ticket to the universe mostly showed different nebulas, galaxies, and other cosmic objects and how far away we are from them.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear, readable, and instructive introduction to our universe, replete with spectacular photographs. Not a scholarly text -- it isn't meant to be such -- nor, as popular astronomy, is it as broad in scope or as deep in analysis (and speculation) as Sagan's Cosmos. But it is an excellent jumping off point for those wishing to learn about the planets, stars, and galaxies, and should prove inspirational to anyone whose spirit is moved by the wonders in the night sky.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an AMAZING book! It would have been even more so if some vandal hadn't removed some of the pages -- two, four, even eight in one place!