Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . . | 
 enlarge | Author: Ph.d., Philip Plait
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 12885
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3
ISBN: 0670019976
Dewey Decimal Number: 520
EAN: 9780670019977
ASIN: 0670019976
Publication Date: October 16, 2008
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Product Description
A lively astronomy primer that uses cataclysmic scenarios to explain the universes most fascinating events.
According to astronomer Philip Plait, the universe is an apocalypse waiting to happen But how much do we really need to fear from things like black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and supernovae? And if we should be scared, is there anything we can do to save ourselves? With humor and wit, Plait details the myriad doomsday events that the cosmos could send our way to destroy our planet and life as we know it. This authoritative yet accessible study is the ultimate astronomy lesson.
Combining fascinatingand often alarmingscenarios that seem plucked from science fiction with the latest research and opinions, Plait illustrates why outer space is not as remote as most people think. Each chapter explores a different phenomenon, explaining it in easy-to-understand terms, and considering how life on earth and the planet itself would be affected should the event come to pass. Rather than sensationalizing the information, Plait analyzes the probability of these catastrophes occurring in our lifetimes and what we can do to stop them. With its entertaining tone and enlightening explanation of unfathomable concepts, Death from the Skies! will appeal to science buffs and beginners alike.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Great highly informative fast-read overview of the cosmos. December 26, 2008
Well written, well organized fast paced overview of the cosmos. You can become the expert amateur astronomer at you next cocktail party. Full of exciting science!
Fun Learning With the Death of the Cosmos December 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In Joseph Heller's _Catch-22_, Yossarian, a bombardier who flies missions over Italy in World War II, is convinced that people are trying to kill him, but his pal Clevinger doesn't understand him. "No they're not!", says Clevinger, prompting Yossarian's question, "Then why are they shooting at me?" Clevinger replies, "They're trying to kill everybody!!", which gets Yossarian's retort, "What difference does _that_ make?" I remembered this when I read the first sentences in _Death from the Skies: These Are the Ways the Earth Will End..._ (Viking) by Philip Plait, a professional astronomer (and perhaps also a _Catch-22_ fan). "THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO KILL YOU. It's nothing personal. It's trying to kill me, too. It's trying to kill _everybody_." Plait is one of the world's favorite astronomers, with his blog drawing millions of readers from around the world. He is an entertaining writer, jocular and jaunty, which produces a delightful clash with the ideas in this book, which, since it is a scientific look at the unpredictable but inevitable end of the Earth and of us and all our progeny, ought to be a real downer. It's not at all. Sure, some of the ends described here are bound to happen, but the ones bound to happen are millions or billions of years from now. The ones described as possibly occurring in the next few years may be immediate threats, but they are also quite unlikely (although not negligible). The enthusiasm Plait has for his subject is not any morbid fascination with the upcoming bang or whimper, but with how much we know now about the universe around us, and he conveys this enthusiasm with pages full of wonder. Using the prospects of the Earth's end, Plait gets to tell us about black holes, the Big Bang, the possibility of alien invasion, gamma rays, and more. This is a fun way to learn about cosmology.
There are two ways the Earth may be killed off in the next few years. One is a hit by a meteor. Meteors have been a problem in the past, the most famous one providing an explanation for the wiping out of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. There is no reason to suppose a replay cannot happen, and we will inevitably take some big hits. The movies make nuking a meteor look easy, but Plait shows how it won't be. The other way we might get killed off any day now is by solar flare. Flares have already caused serious electrical disruptions, and a flare big enough might cause direct biological damage. Also it may affect things like the vital ozone layer and bring on an ice age. Maybe such things won't kill us all off, but the damage will be serious. Fortunately, if we will work together and cooperate (sure, let's bet on that), there are steps that could be taken to divert an asteroid or mitigate electrical loss and weather changes from these first two, the most likely causes of a global wipeout. The rest of the causes covered here are more tumultuous and far more deadly, and some of them are inevitably going to happen - there is no chance that we will avoid them. A black hole wandering through our neighborhood, or a supernova set off near us, aren't likely but would be horrendous. Inevitable will be the eventual death of our Sun, which within the next six billion years will become a red giant and engulf the Earth. It might be that all those years hence we will have discovered a way to tug the Earth out of harm's way, but then we would have to tug it back in when the Sun becomes a white dwarf; even so, the Sun won't last forever. Even further out is the possibility that our Milky Way galaxy might collide with the Andromeda galaxy, resulting in chaos from black holes and radiation. Yet further, and protons will eventually decay, and in 10^100 years, "Nothing ever happens and nothing ever will. The Universe is dark, randomized, silent. And it will remain so forever."
Plait reminds us that as the science of astronomy improves, we will have better ideas and better data. "Don't assume any of this is written in stone. Of course, in 10^40 years, even stone will be long gone." There is a great deal of firm science here, however. The death of the Earth and the Universe proves to be an excellent platform from which Plait can teach lots of astronomical and cosmological concepts, even though when he discusses black holes or quantum mechanics, they defy common sense ("Get used to that. Your common sense is going to take a beating here.") Plait has an irrepressible sense of fun; contemplating gamma ray bursts, he admits we are in no near-future danger, "But still it's fun to speculate... What would happen?" He repeatedly shows us that the forces that brought molecules, a solar system, and life about are the same ones that are going to take it all away. A reader will come away with admiration for all the learning and informed speculation encompassed here, but also, if you are like me, an increased sense of wonder and value. We haven't been here for very long, and we won't be around forever, but here and now the Universe has produced beings that have some sense of understanding of itself. That is, quite literally, cosmic.
 Sneak learning, science writing the way it was meant to be December 23, 2008
4 1/2 stars. Minorly marred only by lapses into slangy language which could be made clearer by a careful editor, this is science writing of the top order. Amidst the glitter of amazing facts revealed by science, Plait weaves bits of the mystery story that is real science being done, with the cycles of real confusion, errors, incredulity, ingenuity, and eventual clarity that make up the process.
The end of life as we know it has been a compelling topic throughout history, and a morbidly attractive topic for children for ages. Plait uses it as a hook to lure readers into contemplation of collisions with meteors, collisions of whole worlds, stellar evolution, novas and supernovas, collisions of whole galaxies, black holes and the laser-like jets they beam across the universe, the end of the universe... and what little is known of the beginning of the universe.
Hilarious and fascinating look at our planets eventual Destruction December 22, 2008
As funny as it is informative (and it is very, very, informative) this book is great for adults and teens alike. Not only do you learn a lot about Life, the Universe and Everything, but you have a great time doing it. And none of that pesky math to bore you to death. I can't wait to pick up his first book "Bad Astronomy".
" . . . when you stare into the abyss, sometimes it stares back at you." December 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In Death from the Skies! These Are the Ways the World Will End . . ., Philip Plait starts small, then progresses to mega-disasters, showing that "the Universe is . . . trying to kill everybody." He reminds us that the word "disaster" originally meant "bad star" to the Romans. The Romans may have meant it in an astrological sense, but many of the Ways the World Will End do come from stellar phenomena.
The global extinction events Plait covers include: asteroid impacts, coronal mass ejections from the Sun, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts from exploding stars called "hypernovae," black holes eating the Earth (the details of this scenario are really fascinating in a ghoulish way), and alien attack.
Plait doubts we'd be lucky enough to wake up to discover Klaatu as the first interstellar emissary to Earth, and he goes into detail trying to answer the question: if there are so many possible life-bearing planets, where are the aliens already? His answer lies in part in a truism he repeats in this book: as far as the Universe is concerned, distance means time. What we see far away is long past. (As for Close Encounters of the Third Kind: " . . . there has not been a single unequivocal piece of evidence that we have been visited by aliens, ever. Deal with it.")
This book is full of threats to our existence I never knew about. For instance . . .
Our solar system orbits the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Most of the time the Sun and Earth are in the galactic plane that contains most of the stars of the Milky Way. But "the Sun . . . pokes up above the disk about every 64 million years . . ." This makes us vulnerable to intergalactic cosmic rays.
Switching momentarily from astronomy to biology, " . . . the fossil record . . . has shown a periodicity in mass extinction events, as if life on Earth is following some sort of schedule for huge die-offs followed by a rediversification of species. . . . That period . . . is about 62 million years."
When "our old friend the cosmic ray" hits the atmosphere, it creates subatomic particles called muons that can "alter or destroy" DNA. Cosmic rays can also destroy the ozone layer. This could result in a mass killing-off of species through ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, acid rain formed by nitrogen dioxide, or "a temperature drop of a few degrees" caused by increased cloud formation.
It's not just that the Universe might kill off life on Earth, it may already have.
Besides astronomy, cosmology, geology, and biology, this book is deeply philosophical too. If you've ever stopped to think after reading science fiction like Olaf Stapeldon's Last and First Men and Star Maker : Two Science Fiction Novels, James Blish's Cities in Flight, or Poul Anderson's Tau Zero (SF Collector's Edition) (Gollancz SF Collector's Edition)(stories that take human beings like us, from times near our own, to the end of our Universe and the beginning of a new one), you'll enjoy Death from the Skies!
I also liked the short stories Plait tells at the start of each chapter that give details about that particular apocalypse.
This book also makes it clear how unimaginative recent disaster movies (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Deep Impact, Armageddon) have been. The wave of end-of-the-world films we're about to endure (including an unnecessary remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and who knows how many movies tied to the "Mayan Calendar" and the year 2012) doesn't promise much more originality.
We love these scary stories, but as Plait asks, "What horror movie is still scary once the lights are on?"
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