Dispatches from Planet 3

Marcia Bartusiak Yale University Press £18.99 HB

Bartusiak’s new book craftily combines lucid and accessible descriptions of science with the personal stories of the people who have unlocked the finer details of the Universe.

With liberal use of anecdotes and quotations, Bartusiak covers the normal – comets, planets, white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, galaxies – as well as the oddities of the Universe – quasars, black holes, the Big Bang, dark matter, etc. Bartusiak leads us expertly through the physics: spectroscopy, atomic theory, quantum theory, stellar nucleosynthesis, galactic and extragalactic dynamics, general relativity and cosmological models. At each juncture, she ably explains how diverse fields of research often unify in reaching staggering conclusions.

This is essentially a collection of vignettes, some previously published as articles in popular magazines. Although there is some repetition, it means that each succinct chapter can be read in isolation – a significant plus, as you can dip into the subject matter when and how you please. There is some welcome emphasis on female astronomers, from Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Cecilia PayneGaposchkin to Margaret Burbidge and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

This is a fascinating read, but also serves as a contemporary history of some of the most momentous insights of modern science. An excellent book to see us through those cloudy nights this winter!