Ask the Experts: Astronomy

by Scientific American

For going on two decades, Scientific American’s “Ask the Experts” column has been answering reader questions on all fields of science. We’ve taken your questions from the basic to the esoteric and reached out to top scientists, professors and researchers to find out why the sky is blue or whether we really only use 10% of our brains. Now, we’ve combed through our archives and have compiled some of the most interesting questions (and answers) into a series of eBooks. Organized by subject, each eBook provides short, easily digestible answers to questions on that particular branch of the sciences. The second eBook in our series – Astronomy – looks skyward and explains a variety of universal phenomena and theories. Are you curious about how planets acquire rings or what creates those gorgeous spiral arms around galaxies? Or maybe you want to know why the Big Bang didn’t collapse into a black hole. Astrophysicists, professors and scientists tackle questions about stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies and nebulae, the expanding universe as well as the oddities – black holes, wormholes and dark matter. Look inside and find out what we know and what we don’t know about these wonders.

Genres: Science

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 25, 2014

About the author

Scientific American , as an institutional author, is a popular science magazine founded by Rufus M. Porter and controlled by Nature Publishing Group since autumn, 2008. Mariette DiChristina has been editor-in-chief since December, 2009.

Reviews

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection from Scientific American's "Ask the Experts" regarding astronomy. It is varied in its questions and multiple answers and I liked it a lot. Since I have been reading about this subject since I was a young teen, I probably have more interest in this subject that most people.

I'd listen to this audiobook again.

[Lucian Baruqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting but very old information.

[Rebee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice book filled with great questions and answers about astronomy.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

great information, loved it!

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Scientific American book is not a book of articles from the magazine; it's a book of questions their readers have asked and answers given by experts in the fields in question. It's good to find so much accurate information. However, many of the answers come from just before the year 2000, and those answers now often seem almost quaint. So much has happened and so many ideas have developed; I felt again and again that twenty years is a long time in modern science.