Astronomy October 2024

A gripping account of the "city-killer" asteroids that could threaten Earth and the race to build a planetary defense system.

Featuring monthly sky maps, with details of the movement of the planets, stars and constellations, the 2025 Australasian Sky Guide is a must-have handbook to the year’s most exciting celestial events. Opening with an essay by Gadigal woman Aunty Joanne Selfe on First Nations understandings of the cosmos, the book offers the latest information on the solar system and its history, as well as tips for optimal viewing. This popular guide by astronomer and author Dr Nick Lomb provides stargazers with the ultimate companion to the southern night sky.

The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes—and here, for the first time, is the inside account of how the mission originated, how it performs its miracles of science, and what its revolutionary images are revealing.

A thrilling journey through the solar system that merges imagination with hard science.

Discover the remarkable NASA spacecraft that have captured our imaginations for decades.

A gripping account of the "city-killer" asteroids that could threaten Earth and the race to build a planetary defense system.

On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle, like a great clock in the sky. In medieval Russia, China, and Korea, monks and court astronomers recorded the appearance of these dark shapes, interpreting them as omens of things to come. In Western Europe, by contrast, where a cosmology originating with Aristotle prevailed, the Sun was regarded as part of the unchanging celestial realm, and it took observations through telescopes by Galileo and others to establish the reality of solar imperfections. In the nineteenth century, amateur astronomers discovered that sunspots ebb and flow about every eleven years—spurring speculation about their influence on the weather and even the stock market.