With a Book to Guide You

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks lost in space in my spare time. How did I accomplish this?  By reading a fascinating book called New Frontiers of Space: From Mars to the Edge of the Universe, from Time Books, written and edited by Jeffrey Kluger and Michael D. Lemonick, joined by several other authors, all writing about space.

I’ve written before on my blog about how a book in the Time series turned me on to space and astronomy as a kid. I was paging through a book about space exploration and happened to see an image of Saturn with its rings. That was the most alien-looking thing I’d ever seen, and I remember sitting there for a long time looking at the picture and thinking about the weirdness and coolness of it all. It’s safe to say that this early book was one of the factors that set me on my career path of learning and sharing astronomy with others. Now, as an adult I’ve written or edited a number of books, articles, documentaries, and exhibits on space and astronomy, and I find there’s always a firehose of information out there to be shared!

New Frontiers of Space reminded me so much of that book from my childhood that several times as I was reading it, I’d stare off into space thinking about how much exploration we’ve done since I was a little girl. Those rings of Saturn? I covered the Voyager 2 mission to Saturn as my first science writing gig. Today, I follow the Cassini Mission as it continues its study of the Saturn system. What struck me right off the bat was the first color plate in the book: a picture of Saturn from Cassini! I love it!  Saturn was, in fact, one of the first successful science observations made by Hubble Space Telescope after the discovery of spherical aberration, and that observation led to my first book about Hubble called Hubble Vision.  I found the science and images so compelling, just as I did as a kid.

New Frontiers really covers a lot of space exploration and astronomy. It takes the reader to look at the latest in telescope technology and explains how our advanced “seeing” machines operate here on the ground and in space to give us ever-sharper eyes on the universe. With those eyes, the authors explain, we are now starting to be able to answer questions about such fascinating topics as galaxy formation, the mysterious black holes, star and planet birth, and the origin and evolution of the universe.  But, it’s not just limited to techno-discussions and pretty pictures. There’s a lot of good discussion about space exploration policy even as the authors present the latest and greatest at places like Pluto (which will be visited in just a few years by the New Horizons spacecraft.  One of my favorite chapters is called “E.T. Are You Calling Us?” and it takes the reader on a great chase through the search for extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life, and lets us hear from the movers and shakers in SETI, including Jill Tartar, Geoffrey Marcy and others.

Science isn’t just done by machines, however. The people who build and use the machines are the heroes of exploration, and New Frontiers introduces readers to a good selection of astronomers, astronauts, and other scientists whose jobs are to show the rest of us how the universe works and what’s “out there”. This is the kind of book that will guide another little girl to space, I hope. And, it’s the kind of book I’d love to be asked to write the next time a publisher wants to do a survey of what’s new in astronomy, space science, and exploration. It’s a never-ending story that I hope humans will never lose interest in reading.

Starstuff Comes Alive

I’ve written many times in the past about how the chemical elements that make up our bodies, that comprise all life on Earth, and the Earth itself, all cooked up inside ancient stars that lived and died long before our Sun and planets formed. It’s actually quite an amazing process that leads from nuclear fusion inside a star that lived more than 5 billion years ago to the present day, where you breathe oxygen that was made inside that star and you type on your smartphone with fingers that are nourished by blood rich in iron that was created inside that star or another one.

Most of us know about the idea that we are all “star stuff”, but it comes as a surprise to others who have never heard that term before or haven’t run across it in astronomy or chemistry classes in school. The story of life in the cosmos is the story of astrobiology, the science that looks at origins of life. It comprises the science disciplines of chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, and other sciences. It’s not enough for the chemical elements to be made inside stars; they then have to combine in unique ways in interstellar space and then be swept into a cloud of gas and dust that will ultimately form planets and a star. Star birth clouds are, in essence, chemical mixing labs and their ultimate output are stars, planets, and the compounds—prebiotic materials—that make life.

I thought about all this when I was contacted a few months back by a group called the “What I See” project. Essentially, these people are showcasing women around the world and having them talk about what they do and their views on life. The centerpiece is a video of each woman where she answers the question, “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”  I thought the project sounded very intriguing, so I decided to participate. And, of course, I had to answer the question.

I thought about it quite a bit, and the answer that kept coming to the top of my mind had to do with being star stuff.  And so that informed the short video of me that appears on the project’s Web site today.  You can watch it here or below.

I’ve had a chance to see some of the other videos submitted by other invitees and these are some amazing people being featured: baronesses, doctors, politicians, writers, and the list goes on. And, the thought keeps popping into my mind is it’s amazing that the chemical raw ingredients made in stars have resulted in some amazingly diverse people being profiled for this project. I am in stellar company.

This is true not just of these women, but of all the humans on (and orbiting) this planet. Each of us: man, woman, child is a singular expression of star stuff. We should ALL look in the mirror and see what happens when stars live, create elements, die and share what they made with the rest of the cosmos. It’s…cosmic.

If you want to watch more videos in the What I See project, just visit their web page.  And, check out tomorrow’s featured participant, a fascinating writer and editor who runs a blog called CatesVilla.  There’s also a trailer video that showcases more of the women being featured in the project, in addition to ambassador short films, and much more.

And here’s a challenge for you: as you watch the videos of these woman showcased (the videos run to October 1st), look at them. Look around you. Look at the men and women you know, the children in your life, your pets, the stuff of life on this planet. And marvel at just what starstuff can do, given enough time, energy, and the right conditions.