検索キーワード： 天文学・宇宙科学

In 1957 the Soviet Union sent Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into space. America took up the challenge to explore the next frontier. A dozen years, and 25 billion dollars later, the mission of Apollo 11 would yield man's finest hour. For that was the first time man's foot left prints on another heavenly body. And that was only the beginning. Apollo 11 is the incredible story of how a nation forged the technology during the turbulent 1960s to slip humanity from the bonds of its native planet. This inside look remembers those who made the great enterprise succeed.

When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, his goal was simple: to offer paying customers a trip to space by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, countless delays, and one catastrophic crash later, his space tourism dream may finally be on the verge of becoming a reality. New Yorker journalist Nicholas Schmidle knows that story intimately. He spent nearly four years embedded with Virgin Galactic at its California hangar, meeting the individuals working to make commercial space travel possible.

In fascinating and personal detail, and based on exclusive diaries and audio recordings from his mission, Tim Peake takes listeners closer than ever before to experience what life in space is really like: the sacrifice that astronauts make in being apart from their families, the sights, the smells, the fear, the exhilaration and the deep and abiding wonder of the view from space. Limitless is a book about the power of following our dreams - however unlikely they may seem - and of striving to reach our potential, even when we might not believe in it ourselves.

In this unique celebration of the moon, lunar expert and space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin Pocock takes listeners on a journey through the moon’s past, present and future. She uncovers the way the moon has captured our imaginations, contemplates how it was formed, and uncovers why we need the moon to protect our fragile earth. Drawing on the latest scientific research, she then looks forward to what might be to come - will we return to the moon, or will it become a launch pad to go into the great unknown?

In the Rutherford and Fry's comprehensive guidebook, they tell the complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it - skipping over some of the boring parts. It's a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans and the very fact that amid all the mess, we can somehow make sense of life.

Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the big bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There’s a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the universe began and grew up, we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the universe.

Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity - but we don't. Where is everybody? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, science and technology writer Wade Roush examines one of the great unsolved problems in science: Is there life, intelligent or otherwise, on other planets?

Space is the biggest, oldest, hottest, coldest, strangest thing a human can study. It's no surprise then, that the weirdest facts in science (not to mention the weirdest scientists themselves) are found in astrophysics and cosmology. If you're looking for instructions on how to set up your grandad's telescope this book probably isn't for you. In Astronomical, Tim James takes us on a tour of the known (and unknown) Universe, focusing on the most-mind boggling stuff we've come across, as well as unpacking the latest theories about what's really going on out there.

A breakout best seller in Italy, now available for American listeners for the first time, Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began is a short, humanistic tour of the origins of the universe, earth, and life - drawing on the latest discoveries in physics to explain the seven most significant moments in the creation of the cosmos.

In 2013, Kate Greene moved to Mars. That is, along with five fellow crew members, she embarked on NASA’s first HI-SEAS mission, a simulated Martian environment located on the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. For four months she lived, worked, and slept in an isolated geodesic dome, conducting a sleep study on her crew mates and gaining incredible insight into human behavior in tight quarters, as well as the nature of boredom, dreams, and isolation that arise amidst the promise of scientific progress and glory.

For all those who wonder about this bizarre universe and those who want to overthrow the big bang, this handbook gives you "just the facts": the observations that have shaped these ideas and theories. While the big bang holds the attention of scientists, it isn't perfect. The authors pull back the curtains and show how cosmology really works. 

So you’ve fallen in love with space and now you want to see it for yourself, huh? You want to witness the birth of a star, or visit the black hole at the center of our galaxy? You want to know if there are aliens out there, or how to travel through a wormhole? You want the wonders of the universe revealed before your very eyes? Well stop, because all that will probably kill you.

If humans and their private wealth have made such a mess of Earth, who can say we won’t do the same in space? In The Consequential Frontier, business and technology journalist Peter Ward is raising this vital question before it’s too late. Interviewing tech CEOs, inventors, scientists, lobbyists, politicians, and future civilian astronauts, Ward sheds light on a whole industry beyond headline-grabbing rocket billionaires like Bezos and Musk and introduces the new generation of activists trying to keep it from rushing recklessly into the cosmos.  

July 20, 1969. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin left humanity’s first footprints on the Moon. The plaque they left behind reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” But was the Apollo 11 moon landing mission really a global endeavor? How did people outside the United States view these “rocket men”? Against the political backdrop of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, was it, indeed, “For all mankind”? 

Instead of “what if the South won the Civil War?” cosmologists ask, “what if the constants that make up the fundamental building blocks of physics were different?” Physicists argue that any slight change to the laws of physics would mean a disruption in the evolution of the universe - and our existence. With the many factors that had to align for us to exist, it can seem like the laws of physics might seem finely tuned to make our existence possible. Instead of a supernatural or divine explanation, this book explores the possibility is that our universe isn’t the only one.

The second title in our series - Astronomy - looks skyward and explains a variety of universal phenomena and theories. Are you curious about how planets acquire rings or what creates those gorgeous spiral arms around galaxies? Or maybe you want to know why the Big Bang didn’t collapse into a black hole. Astrophysicists, professors, and scientists tackle questions about stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies, and nebulae, the expanding universe as well as the oddities - black holes, wormholes, and dark matter. 

Science fiction has imagined some pretty wild ideas about how the universe could work - from hidden extra dimensions in Interstellar to life as a mental projection in The Matrix. But these imaginings seem downright tame compared to the mind-bending science now coming out of physics and astronomy, and in this audiobook, we look at the strange and fascinating discoveries shaping (and reshaping) the field today. 

Our nearest planetary neighbor has been the subject of endless fascination and wide-ranging theories throughout history. Is there life on Mars? Was there ever life on Mars? What was the atmosphere like thousands or millions of years ago? From Percival Lowell, who built his own observatory so he could dedicate himself to studying the red planet, to NASA landing the car-sized Curiosity rover in 2012, this book traces Scientific American's coverage of the observation and exploration of Mars. 

“Cosmos” comes from a Greek word for an orderly and systematic universe. In this book, we present the most riveting discoveries and mind-bending ideas about our cosmic home, from what we know of the origins of the universe and the cartography of space to the most bizarre phenomena and the search for life. Discussions include the possibility that the big bang was the consequence of a black hole in a fourth spatial dimension, that cosmic ripples created infinite universes, that entangled black holes could act as wormhole-like passageways through space, and much more.

As end-of-the-world scenarios go, an apocalyptic collision with an asteroid or comet is the new kid on the block, gaining respectability only in the last decade of the 20th century with the realisation that the dinosaurs had been wiped out by just such an impact. Now the science community is making up for lost time, with worldwide efforts to track the thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects and plans for high-tech hardware that could deflect an incoming object from a collision course - a procedure depicted in several Hollywood movies.