An Earthling S Guide To Outer Space

Beloved science commentator Bob McDonald takes us on a tour of our galaxy, unraveling the mysteries of the universe and helping us navigate our place among the stars. How big is our galaxy? Is there life on those distant planets? Are we really made of star dust? And where do stars even come from? In An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space, we finally have the answers to all those questions and more. With clarity, wisdom, and a great deal of enthusiasm, McDonald explores the curiosities of the big blue planet we call home as well as our galactic neighbours—from Martian caves to storm clouds on Jupiter to the nebulae at the far end of the universe. So if you’re pondering how to become an astronaut, or what dark matter really is, or how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, look no further. Through a captivating mix of stories, experiments, and illustrations, McDonald walks us through space exploration past and present, and reveals what we can look forward to in the future. An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space is sure to satisfy science readers of all ages, and to remind us earthbound terrestrials just how special our place in the universe truly is.

Every kid worries about making friends at a new school, but when nine-year-old Bud accidentally catches the wrong bus and finds himself launched into deep space, new friends are the least of his problems! At Cosmos Academy, Bud learns that Earthlings are the most feared creatures in the galaxy, and even Earth's location has been hidden! With the help of his new friend, Gort, Bud goes undercover as a Tenarian exchange student. Unfortunately that means everyone thinks he's a pro at anti-gravity Zero-Ball (even though he's really only a pro at watching sports). And with paranoid Principal Lepton threat ening to expel any Earthlings (into outer space) and only Gort's hacked Blip computer to help them determine Earth's co-ordinates, will Bud ever find his way home?

An otherworldly coming-of-age tale of a woman who believes she is an alien, from the author of the international sensation Convenience Store Woman. Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman was one of the most unusual and refreshing bestsellers of recent years, depicting the life of a thirty-six-year-old clerk in a Tokyo convenience store. Now, in Earthlings, Sayaka Murata pushes at the boundaries of our ideas of social conformity in this brilliantly imaginative, intense, and absolutely unforgettable novel. As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents’ ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can’t seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the “baby factory” of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe—answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover. Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata’s status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe. Praise for Earthlings A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, TIME and Literary Hub Named a Most Anticipated Book by the New York Times, TIME, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, the Guardian, Vulture, Wired, Literary Hub, Bustle, PopSugar, and Refinery29 “Intimate, deadpan, and unflinchingly unhinged. . . . Exceptionally fun. . . . Amid all the hedgehog and alien talk is a novel that asks how happiness and freedom can be possible inside a stiflingly anxious world, and its answers, while grotesque, are worth reading.” —Wired “If you’re in the mood for weird, Sayaka Murata is always a reliable place to turn. . . . [Earthlings] centers on Natsuki, a character whose story begins in childhood with her cousin in the mountains and spirals ever more darkly (and bizarrely) into adulthood and its many strange reckonings. This is a story that’s best not to spoil, but it will get into your head.” —Seattle Times “It’s the book’s visceral, grim savagery, and those final shocking pages, that makes this such a vital, powerful novel. . . . Earthlings is the sort of challenging, confronting fiction that wakes you up with a jolt and leaves a lasting impression.” —Locus

"There's something intriguing to be learned on practically every page... [How to Astronaut] captures the details of an extraordinary job and turns even the mundane aspects of space travel into something fascinating."––Publishers Weekly Ride shotgun on a trip to space with astronaut Terry Virts. A born storyteller with a gift for the surprising turn of phrase and eye for the perfect you-are-there details, he captures all the highs, lows, humor, and wonder of an experience few will ever know firsthand. Featuring stories covering survival training, space shuttle emergencies, bad bosses, the art of putting on a spacesuit, time travel, and much more!

Examines the images we have absorbed from popular culture and explains how the variety of environments in the universe could give rise to such unusual creatures.

DISCOVER HOW LIFE REALLY WORKS - ON EARTH AND IN SPACE 'A wonderfully insightful sidelong look at Earthly biology' Richard Dawkins 'Crawls with curious facts' Sunday Times _________________________ We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science. Scientists are confident that there is alien life across the universe yet we have not moved beyond our perception of 'aliens' as Hollywood stereotypes. The time has come to abandon our fixation on alien monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing. Using his own expert understanding of life on Earth and Darwin's theory of evolution - which applies throughout the universe - Cambridge zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum explains what alien life must be like. This is the story of how life really works, on Earth and in space. _________________________ 'An entertaining, eye-opening and, above all, a hopeful view of what - or who - might be out there in the cosmos' Philip Ball, author of Nature's Patterns 'A fascinating insight into the deepest of questions: what might an alien actually look like' Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins 'If you don't want to be surprised by extraterrestrial life, look no further than this lively overview of the laws of evolution that have produced life on earth' Frans de Waal, author of Mama's Last Hug

From writer Stacy McAnulty and illustrator Stevie Lewis, Mars! Earthlings Welcome is a light-hearted nonfiction picture book about the red planet—told from the perspective of Mars himself... Meet Mars! The red planet. Planet Marvelous. Favorite sibling of Earth (or so he claims). Sometimes they're close (just 34.5 million miles apart). Sometimes they need space (250 million miles apart)! Earth and Mars have a lot in common—clouds, mountains, polar icecaps. And while Earth has Earthlings, Mars makes a persuasive case for why people should make the journey to spend time with him. His day is 7 minutes longer! He is home to the largest volcano in the whole solar system. He's, well, marvelous. With characteristic humor and charm, Stacy McAnulty channels the voice of Mars in this next celestial "autobiography" in the Our Universe series. Rich with kid-friendly facts and beautifully brought to life by Stevie Lewis, this is an equally charming and irresistible picture book.