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On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth-century history—one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told.

If you learn about the scientific method, you learn that first we hypothesize about something we’ve experienced, and then we look for more of it. This works well enough—but what if you are interested in studying a heretofore unknown comet or supernova? That is the essential problem of the astronomer: the most important discoveries happen without notice! Indeed, as Chris Lintott argues in Accidental Astronomy, luck defines astronomy. Lintott explores the ways in which happenstance shapes how we investigate the sky.

In Neil deGrasse Tyson’s delightful journey through the cosmos, his fictional character Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike. Merlin, a timeless visitor from Planet Omniscia in the Andromeda Galaxy, has observed first-hand many of the major scientific events of Earth’s history. Merlin’s friends include the most important scientific figures and explorers of all time—da Vinci, Magellan, Newton, Einstein, and Hubble.

Two questions guide this seven-year project: First, how can we approach the phenomenon, representation, and interpretation of total solar eclipses? Second, how can we heal the historical divide separating the natural sciences from the humanities, arts, history, and theology? The result of this interdisciplinary investigation into eclipses is an exciting look behind the scenes—into labs, archives, and museums, as well as around fieldwork in astronomy, meteorology, animal behavior, and ecophysiology.

On the morning of 28 January 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions around the world witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth century history – one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened – and why – has never been told.

Pillars of Creation tells the story of one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of civilization, a $10 billion instrument with a staggeringly ambitious goal: unlocking the secrets of the cosmos. Award-winning science writer Richard Panek stands us shoulder to shoulder with senior scientists as they conceive the mission, meet decades-long challenges to bring it to fruition, and, now, use its unprecedented technology to yield new discoveries about the origins of our solar system.

What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like. In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is. 

In Into the Unknown, astrophysicist Kelsey Johnson takes us to the edge of scientific understanding about the universe: What caused the Big Bang? What happens inside black holes? Are there other dimensions? She doesn’t just celebrate what we know but rather what we don’t, and asks what it means if we never find that knowledge. Exploring the convergence of science, philosophy, and theology, Johnson argues we must reckon with possibilities—including those that may be beyond human comprehension.

In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories—starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve the impossible. It was proof, it seemed, that the USSR had manpower and collective will that went beyond America's material advantages. They had asserted themselves as a world power. But in The Wrong Stuff, John Strausbaugh tells a different story.

Ein Blick auf die Erforschung außerirdischen Lebens, die unser Verständnis des Kosmos verändert. Seit Tausenden von Jahren fragen sich die Menschen, ob sie allein im Weltall sind. Zum ersten Mal können wir nun auch die entsprechende Technologie nutzen, um das zu untersuchen. Die Frage nach anderem Leben im Universum sollte eine klare Antwort haben: ja oder nein. Aber wenn man versucht, anderswo Leben zu finden, stellt man fest, dass es nicht so einfach ist. Wie kann man es über kosmische Entfernungen hinweg finden? Was ist eigentlich Leben?

「新しい地球（テラ）」の創造は日本から始まる。宇宙人による45億年前からのプロジェクトがついに発動。

We are living in a golden age in astronomy and in the search for life the universe. Over the last few decades, space exploration has shown that not only are there habitable environments within our solar system, but there are millions of exoplanets within our galaxy that could support life. We are on the cusp of breakthroughs that will revolutionize our understanding of our place in the cosmos in. In The Secret Life of the Universe, astrobiologist and the director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute Nathalie A. Cabrol takes us to the frontiers of the search for life.

Die Sterne zeigen dir die Liebe. Nova glaubt an Horoskope, überzeugt von der Weisheit der Sterne. Auch Weston widmet sich den Sternen, allerdings streng wissenschaftlich. Als Rockstar der Astronomie hält er Astrologie für reine Illusion. Wenig überraschend, dass bei ihrem ersten Aufeinandertreffen die Funken fliegen. Einige Jahre später braucht Nova ausgerechnet Westons Hilfe, als es um ihre Vergangenheit geht. Deshalb nimmt sie unter einem falschen Vorwand einen Job in dem Freizeitcamp an, in dem Weston mittlerweile lehrt.