Space Engineering

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.

Janna Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative - it is, as well, a wonderful listen from first to last.

Where is the best place to find life beyond Earth? We often look to Mars as the most promising site in our solar system, but recent scientific missions have revealed that some of the most habitable real estate may actually lie farther away. Beneath the frozen crusts of several of the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn lurk vast oceans that may have been in existence for as long as Earth, and together may contain more than 50 times its total volume of liquid water. Could there be organisms living in their depths?

A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series, The Vital Abyss is the secret history of the cataclysmic events that occurred on Eros station, and the revelation of what came after...Somewhere in the vast expanse of space, a group of prisoners lives in permanent captivity. The only company they have is each other and the Belters who guard them. The only stories they know are the triumphs and crimes that brought them there. The only future they see is an empty life in an enormous room.

NASA’s history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But America’s space agency wasn’t created in a vacuum. It was assembled from pre-existing parts, drawing together some of the best minds the non-Soviet world had to offer. Breaking the Chains of Gravity tells the story of America’s nascent space program, its scientific advances, its personalities and the rivalries it caused between the various arms of the US military.

West with the Night is the story of a remarkable woman molded and shaped by many things: the African jungle, a certain dog, horses, airplanes, friendships with white men and black. There is no life, no story quite like it.

Across millennia, cultures and civilizations have envisioned the ability to revisit the past, glimpse the future, or even rewrite fate. From ancient mythologies to modern science fiction epics, the allure of time travel persists as one of humanity’s most profound and enduring fascinations.

The Quantum Being: A Self-Sustaining and Magnificent Human Craft" by Shehnaz Soni is a captivating guide that explores the intersection of quantum principles and personal transformation. In this enlightening book, Soni begins by introducing the mind-bending concepts of quantum mechanics, where atoms dance and particles defy conventional rules. She skillfully translates these scientific notions into relatable and accessible ideas, making the quantum world accessible even to novice listeners.

Held captive by Dark Horse Company, Captain Axel Finn is faced with a mission to humanity’s ancestral home after all contact with the planet is lost. Learning his mother might be hiding there, Axel agrees to help his adversaries, and deploy on Vengeance, the last Steward ship. But his decision might lead to his downfall if the Wrath have already arrived on Earth. On the treacherous Wooly planet of Dari, bounty hunter Rangnar Soki becomes the prey, finding himself the target in a deadly game of survival. His path to rejoin Axel’s crew hinges on passing a test of Dari’s most revered guardian.

One of the world’s most prominent physicists and fearless free spirit, Carlo Rovelli is also a masterful storyteller. His bestselling books have introduced millions of readers and listeners to the wonders of modern physics and his singular perspective on the cosmos. This new collection of essays reveals a curious intellect always on the move. Rovelli invites us on an accessible and enlightening voyage through science, literature, philosophy, and politics.

The 2nd moon of Jupiter has been turned into a prison planet, where for several generations robot drone ships have been dumping the scum of the universe, and are patrolled by a ring of security satellites. After a century of research, old core samples for the ice moon reveal that the frozen oceans of Europa hold the base element for an immortality drug that can extend the human lifespan several-fold. Now greedy military corporations race to exploit this new fountain of youth, only to discover they can't disable the orbiting sentry that was programmed to guard the inmates at all costs. It ...

One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA's history, George W. S. Abbey was called "the Dark Lord", "the Godfather", and "UNO" (unidentified NASA official) by those within NASA. Yet Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history. From young pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, and finally director of the Johnson Space Center, Abbey's story has never been fully told - until now. The Astronaut Maker takes listeners inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey rose to power and wielded it out of the spotlight.

Prepare to learn everything we still don’t know about our strange and mysterious Universe. Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore - there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham and particle physicist Daniel Whiteson have teamed up to explore everything we don't know about the Universe: The enormous holes in our knowledge of the cosmos. Armed with entertaining and lucid explanations of science, they give us the best answers currently available.

We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they lurk in the inner sanctum of almost every galaxy of stars in the universe. Recent research, however, has led to a cascade of new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. As the astrophysicist Caleb Scharf reveals in Gravity’s Engines, these chasms in space-time don’t just vacuum up everything that comes near them; they also spit out huge beams and clouds of matter.

When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.

The Trouble with Physics argues that a limited notion of time is holding physics back. It's time for a major revolution in scientific thought. The reality of time could be the key to the next big breakthrough in theoretical physics. What if the laws of physics themselves were not timeless? What if they could evolve? Time Reborn offers a radical new approach to cosmology that embraces the reality of time and opens up a whole new universe of possibilities.

Humanity has long looked to the sky and marveled at the world around us. We've wondered why the world is the way it is and whether it has to be that way. And we dream of a time when we have developed a theory of everything—a theory that answers all questions. Einstein's Unfinished Dream explores the cutting-edge research of modern particle physicists that pushes us slowly towards a theory of everything....

For more than 50 years, the world's top scientists searched for the "missing" planet Vulcan, whose existence was mandated by Isaac Newton's theories of gravity. Countless hours were spent on the hunt for the elusive orb, and some of the era's most skilled astronomers even claimed to have found it. There was just one problem: It was never there.

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.

In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photos of the far side of the Moon. Even in their poor resolution, the images stunned scientists: The far side is an enormous mountainous expanse, not the vast lava plains seen from Earth. Subsequent missions have confirmed this in much greater detail. How could this be, and what might it tell us about our own place in the universe? As it turns out, quite a lot. When the Earth Had Two Moons is an astonishing exploration of planet formation and the origins of life by one of the world’s most innovative planetary geologists.