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New Scientist: Instant Expert
A Journey Through the Universe: A traveler's guide from the center of the sun to the edge of the unknown
There's a whole universe out there ... and this book is your journey into space.
Imagine you had a spacecraft capable of travelling through interstellar space. You climb in, blast into orbit, fly out of the solar system and keep going. Where do you end up, and what do you see along the way?
The answer is: mostly nothing. Space is astonishingly, mind-blowingly empty. As you travel through the void between galaxies your spaceship encounters nothing more exciting than the odd hydrogen molecule. But when it does come across something more exotic: wow!
First and most obviously, stars and planets. Some are familiar from our own backyard: yellow suns, rocky planets like Mars, gas and ice giants like Jupiter and Neptune. But there are many more: giant stars, red and white dwarfs, super-earths and hot Jupiters.
Elsewhere are swirling clouds of dust giving birth to stars, and infinitely dense regions of space-time called black holes. These clump together in the star clusters we call galaxies, and the clusters of galaxies we call... galaxy clusters.
And that is just the start. As we travel further we encounter ever more weird, wonderful and dangerous entities: supernovas, supermassive black holes, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars, black dwarfs, quark stars, gamma ray bursts and cosmic strings.
A Journey Through The Universe is a grand tour of the most amazing celestial objects and how they fit together to build the cosmos.
As for the end of the journey - nobody knows. But getting there will be fun.
Imagine you had a spacecraft capable of travelling through interstellar space. You climb in, blast into orbit, fly out of the solar system and keep going. Where do you end up, and what do you see along the way?
The answer is: mostly nothing. Space is astonishingly, mind-blowingly empty. As you travel through the void between galaxies your spaceship encounters nothing more exciting than the odd hydrogen molecule. But when it does come across something more exotic: wow!
First and most obviously, stars and planets. Some are familiar from our own backyard: yellow suns, rocky planets like Mars, gas and ice giants like Jupiter and Neptune. But there are many more: giant stars, red and white dwarfs, super-earths and hot Jupiters.
Elsewhere are swirling clouds of dust giving birth to stars, and infinitely dense regions of space-time called black holes. These clump together in the star clusters we call galaxies, and the clusters of galaxies we call... galaxy clusters.
And that is just the start. As we travel further we encounter ever more weird, wonderful and dangerous entities: supernovas, supermassive black holes, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars, black dwarfs, quark stars, gamma ray bursts and cosmic strings.
A Journey Through The Universe is a grand tour of the most amazing celestial objects and how they fit together to build the cosmos.
As for the end of the journey - nobody knows. But getting there will be fun.
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2022
25 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 25, 2023
108th book of 2023.
Disappointing read, mostly basic astronomy, some now outdated facts and a lack of physics. But nice pictures at times. I also found most of the articles dry, which is surprising as I enjoy reading the New Scientist magazine generally at work when we get the new copies in.
Disappointing read, mostly basic astronomy, some now outdated facts and a lack of physics. But nice pictures at times. I also found most of the articles dry, which is surprising as I enjoy reading the New Scientist magazine generally at work when we get the new copies in.
May 19, 2024
3.5/5. An eye-opening and fascinating journey through our solar system and beyond. Our sun has its own rains, and Mars boasts the highest mountain in our solar system, Olympus Mons, three times the height of Mount Everest.
Saturn's rings are mainly ice (and not rocks), and some of its moons have water-spewing volcanoes (and not lava), the only known bodies besides Earth to have water. Pluto was demoted partly because remembering too many planets is hard for children!
There are stars much larger than our sun, with the biggest discovered being 1,700 times our sun's diameter. The space is mind-bogglingly vast, majestic, and grandly designed, with the universe expanding faster than expected.
Interestingly, Allah mentions this in the Quran:
"The heavens, We have built them with power. And verily, We are expanding it" (Holy Quran, 51:47).
Indeed, if there is a grand design, there must be a Grand Designer.
Saturn's rings are mainly ice (and not rocks), and some of its moons have water-spewing volcanoes (and not lava), the only known bodies besides Earth to have water. Pluto was demoted partly because remembering too many planets is hard for children!
There are stars much larger than our sun, with the biggest discovered being 1,700 times our sun's diameter. The space is mind-bogglingly vast, majestic, and grandly designed, with the universe expanding faster than expected.
Interestingly, Allah mentions this in the Quran:
"The heavens, We have built them with power. And verily, We are expanding it" (Holy Quran, 51:47).
Indeed, if there is a grand design, there must be a Grand Designer.
March 29, 2019
An interesting and up-to-date review of what we know and what we don't know, from the solar system to the whole universe. There are plenty of items that even the most dedicated New Scientist readers might not have come across.
One highlight of the book is a little interview with Jocelyn Bell, relating the story of how she discovered the first radio signal from a pulsar in 1967; the sexism of the times is quite shocking.
One highlight of the book is a little interview with Jocelyn Bell, relating the story of how she discovered the first radio signal from a pulsar in 1967; the sexism of the times is quite shocking.
September 6, 2018
Went right over my head! I thought as it was a 'NewScientist Instant Expert' book it might have been dumbed down a bit for an average reader to find out a little about space. I was wrong and you do need prior knowledge to understand any of the writing.
It probably is a good book to expand your knowledge on the universe... but I can't be sure as I understood very little!!
It probably is a good book to expand your knowledge on the universe... but I can't be sure as I understood very little!!
December 27, 2019
Fascinating. We are but a speck of sand...
March 23, 2020
Interesting and simple read about some of the more up to date information discovered about our solar system and beyond. Easy read.
January 14, 2021
Fascinating book! Learned a lot and thouroughly enjoyed it cover to cover.
December 27, 2022
fine
A great overview of our knowledge moving from the sun outwards. I love refreshing my knowledge and also adding to it
A great overview of our knowledge moving from the sun outwards. I love refreshing my knowledge and also adding to it
August 22, 2023
Easy to read
I'm astronaut now
I'm astronaut now
October 23, 2023
Well written with lots of intriguing facts. It felt like Ms Frizzle was taking her alumnae on the journey and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
February 6, 2025
Great read
August 29, 2025
okay, nothing special. covered lots of ground, didn't go too into depth, but still very interesting.
September 2, 2025
not a fan. seemed disconnected and uninteresting
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews