[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
Search for Life by Monica M. Grady (Natural
History Museum, 2001)
An illustrated introduction to the search for life beyond Earth.
Buy this book from Natural
History Museum
Meteorites by Sara Russell and Monica Grady (Natural History Museum,
2002)
The origin, nature and significance of meteorites, illustrated with images of
some of the most rare and precious meteorites from the national collection,
housed at the Natural History Museum in London, where the two authors are the
leading meteorite research specialists.
Buy this book from WHSmith
About Time: Einstein's unfinished revolution by Paul Davies (Penguin
Science, 1996)
Tackles the changing ideas and notions of time over the past century and the
possibilities of time travel becoming a reality.
Buy this book from Amazon
Beagle: From Darwin's epic voyage to the British expedition to Mars
by C. T. Pillinger (Faber & Faber, November 2003)
Professor Pillinger, the driving force behind Beagle 2 Mars Lander, tells the
inside story of the project.
Buy this book from Amazon
Before the Beginning: Our universe and others by Martin Rees (Simon
& Schuster, 2002)
The Astronomer Royal describes some of the most difficult and controversial
problems of present day astronomy in a clear and fresh way.
Buy this book from Amazon
A Brief History of Time from the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen
Hawking (Bantam Books, 1998)
In the decade since the book's publication in 1988, there have been dramatic
developments in string theory, most notably the advances in understanding black
holes. In this 10th anniversary edition, Hawking updates us on the progress
made in this area and tells us how many of his own predictions turned out to
be right.
Buy this book from WHSmith
Cosmic Company: The search for life in the universe by Seth Shostak
and Alexandra Barnett (Cambridge University Press, October 2003)
The authors ponder the possibility of alien life and the consequences of receiving
a signal from the cosmos. They explain why scientists think sentient life might
exist on other worlds, how we could discover it, and what it might be like.
Entertaining, informative and lavishly illustrated.
Buy this book from Amazon
The Curvature of Spacetime: Newton, Einstein, and gravitation by Harald
Fritzsch and Karin Heusch (Columbia University Press, 2002)
Offers the opportunity to take part in an imaginary meeting between Newton,
Einstein and a modern physicist, discussing the general theory of relativity
and other mysteries of modern physics. Newton serves as the sceptic and asks
questions a modern reader might ask; Einstein himself does the explaining while
the particle physicist explains the new developments that have occurred since
the general theory was proposed.
Buy this book from WHSmith
DK Eyewitness Guides: Space exploration by Carole Stott (Penguin Books,
2002)
Discover everything to do with space, from our solar system, astronauts and
meteors to distant galaxies and find out about the landing craft used to probe
and explore planets.
Buy this book from WHSmith
How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies (Penguin Books, 2002)
Elaborates on Einstein's theory of relativity. It's a fun read that explores
the practicalities of creating a time machine.
Buy this book from Amazon
Magic Universe: The Oxford guide to modern science by Nigel Calder
(Oxford University Press, September 2003)
The author draws on his vast experience to offer readers a lively look at modern
science in all its glory. From quarks to linguistics, climate change to cloning,
and chaos to superstrings, he presents self-contained stories, drawing on interviews
with more than 200 researchers, from graduate students to Nobel Prize-winners.
Buy this book from Amazon
The New Solar System edited by J. Kelly Beatty, Carolyn Collins Peterson
and Andrew Chaikin (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated systematic tour of the Solar System.
Though aimed at students and professional planetary scientists, this is also
an excellent reference work for more general readers.
Buy this book from WHSmith
Newton to Einstein: The trail of light, an excursion to the wave-particle
duality and the Special Theory of Relativity by Ralph Baierlein (Cambridge
University Press, 2001)
Takes the reader along the trail of light from Newton's particles to Einstein's
relativity, presenting clues and encouraging the reader to draw conclusions
before answers are revealed.
Buy this book from WHSmith
Rare Earth: Why complex life is uncommon in the universe by Peter
D. Ward and Donald Brownlee (Springer-Verlag, 2003)
A convincing case is made to establish the unique position of Earth with respect
to complex life on other planets within the solar system and beyond.
Buy this book from WHSmith
Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on extraterrestrial life by Seth
Shostak (Berkeley Hills Books, 1998)
Where are the extraterrestrials likely to be hanging out? What will they look
like and be like? What is their interest in us, and how can we find them? The
author examines recent scientific discoveries that suggest there may be other
life forms in the universe.
Buy this book from Amazon
Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The physical possibilities of travel
through time by Richard Gott (Phoenix Mass Market, 2002)
Discusses the possibility of time travel in the real world; also explores the
scientific, social and moral implications of time travel, and looks at recent
remarkable experiments in which fundamental particles were actually sent into
the future.
Buy this book from Amazon
Turn Left at Orion, A hundred night sky objects to see in a small
telescope – and how to find them by Guy Joseph Consolmagno and Daniel
Michael Davis (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Excellent reference book for the amateur astronomer, with easy to follow instructions
of how to find planets and stars. Contains maps, drawings and photographs.
Buy this book from Amazon
Channel 4 Television takes no responsibility for the content of any third-party sites.
National and International Organisations
Channel
4: Science
www.channel4.com/science
Portal to science information from Channel 4. Look for 'Science in Space' in
the 'Science by Subject' menu.
British
National Space Centre (BNSC)
www.bnsc.gov.uk
Includes sections on earth observation and space exploration, plus a learning
zone.
European
Space Agency (ESA)
www.esa.int
Comprehensive and impressive site about ESA's work and missions.
National
Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA)
www.nasa.gov
Portal to a vast network of information and images from the US space agency.
Natural
History Museum
www.nhm.ac.uk
Explore the collections and special presentations online.
Particle
Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)
www.pparc.ac.uk
Check out the 'Public and Schools' section for free publications on astronomy,
space and particle physics, plus a special introduction to the science, and
images and screensavers to download.
Royal
Institution of Great Britain
www.rigb.org
Includes 'Science Inside Out', with interactive science modules and details
of the schools programme.
Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
www.seti-inst.edu
Aims to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of
life in the universe.
Anglo
Australian Observatory
www.aao.gov.au/images/
A unique collection of wide-field astronomical photographs, mostly made with
the telescopes of the Anglo-Australian Observatory.
Hubble
Space Telescope
http://hubble.stsci.edu
All the latest photographs from the Hubble telescope.
NASA's
Planetary Photojournal
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov
An excellent archive with images of all the planets.
Mars
Beagle
2: The British led exploration of Mars
www.beagle2.co.uk
Has a weblog of current projects.
Planetary
Sciences at the National Space Science Data Center
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary
Type the spacecraft names ‘Mariner’ and ‘Viking’ into
the search engine for details.
Mars
Express
http://sci.esa.int/marsexpress
Lots of information plus images and videos.
Mars
Pathfinder
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF
The Mars Pathfinder homepage with information from the time of landing and from
the end of the mission. Also contains information about the sister ship, Mars
Global Surveyor.
Jupiter
Galileo
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
The Galileo spacecraft's 14-year odyssey came to an end on 21 September 2003,
when the spacecraft passed into Jupiter's shadow then disintegrated in the planet's
dense atmosphere.
Voyager
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
After travelling through space for more than 26 years, Voyager 1 is approaching
a new milestone. On 5 November 2003, the spacecraft will be about 8.4 billion
miles from the sun. It is the only spacecraft to have made measurements in the
solar wind from such a great distance from the source of the dynamic solar environment.
Saturn (Titan)
Huygens
http://sci.esa.int/huygens
Images and videos, news and up-to-date reports.
Comets
May Have led to Birth and Death of Dinosaur Era
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/0516_020516_dinocomet.html
National Geographic article that highlights evidence that a comet collision
with Earth 65 million years ago triggered the end of the dinosaur era.
Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Time Travel
www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/Time_Travel.html
A compendium of short articles about time travel.
Is
There Anybody Out There?
www.space.com/searchforlife/astrobiology_special_010215-2.html
Intriguing article from Space.com on looking for life beyond Earth.
Nova
Time Travel
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/
Includes Carl Sagan's view on time travel and the Einstein perspective.
Theoretical
Physics Fun
www.theory.caltech.edu/people/patricia/tphys.html
Persevere with this site as it provides a fun way to learn about spacetime and
time travel and provides some basic background on how mathematical models of
space and time have evolved since ancient times.
Time
Travel Fund
www.timetravelfund.com
Want to book your time travelling place? Check out this site - you might not
believe what you see!
Virtual
Trips to Black Holes and Neutron Stars
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html
Discusses black holes and their various quirks, with cool graphical displays.
Graphics version (includes layouts and images)