Over 50 years ago, astronomers launched the world's first orbiting telescope. This allowed them to gaze further into outer space and examine anything that appears in the sky above our heads, from comets and planets to galaxy clusters and stars. Since then, almost 100 space telescopes have been launched from Earth and are orbiting our planet, with 26 still active and relaying information back to us.

As a result of these space-based instruments, such as NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope, we know much more about the universe than we did half a century ago. But why is Hubble, orbiting just 540 kilometers above the Earth, so much more effective than a ground-based telescope? How can a glorified camera tell us not only what distant objects look like, but their detailed chemical composition and three-dimensional structure as well?

In Eyes in the Sky, science writer Andrew May takes us on a journey into space to answer these questions and more. Looking at the development of revolutionary instruments, such as Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope, May explores how such technology has helped us understand the evolution of the Universe.

The 20th century saw radical changes in the way serious music is composed and produced, including the advent of electronic instruments and novel compositional methods such as serialism and stochastic music. Unlike previous artistic revolutions, this one took its cues from the world of science.

Creating electronic sounds, in the early days, required a well-equipped laboratory and an understanding of acoustic theory. Composition became increasingly algorithmic, with many composers embracing the mathematics of set theory. The result was some of the most intellectually challenging music ever written - yet also some of the best known, thanks to its rapid assimilation into sci-fi movies and TV shows, from the electronic scores of Forbidden Planet and Dr Who to the other-worldly sounds of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Have you ever been inspired by stunning images from the Hubble telescope, or the magic of sci-fi special effects, only to look through a small backyard telescope at the disappointing white dot of a planet or faint blur of a galaxy? Yet the Moon is different. Seen through even a relatively cheap 'scope, it springs into life like a real place, with mountains and valleys and rugged craters. With a bit of imagination, you can even picture yourself as a sightseeing visitor there - which in a sense you are.

The Cold War saw scientists in East and West racing to create amazing new technologies, the like of which the world had never seen. Yet not everyone was taken by surprise. From super-powerful atomic weapons to rockets and space travel, readers of science fiction (SF) had seen it all before.

Sometimes reality lived up to the SF vision, at other times it didn't. The hydrogen bomb was as terrifyingly destructive as anything in fiction, while real-world lasers didn't come close to the promise of the classic SF ray gun. Nevertheless, when the scientific Cold War culminated in the Strategic Defence Initiative of the 1980s, it was so science-fictional in its aspirations that the media dubbed it Star Wars.

This entertaining account, offering a plethora of little known facts and insights from previously classified military projects, shows how the real-world science of the Cold War followed in the footsteps of SF - and how the two together changed our perception of both science and scientists, and paved the way to the world we live in today.

Dreams, schemes and opportunity as space opens for tourism and commerce.

Twentieth century space exploration may have belonged to state-funded giants such as NASA, but there is a parallel history which has set the template for the future.

Even before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, private companies were exploiting space via communication satellites - a sector that is seeing exponential growth in the internet age. In human spaceflight, too, commercialisation is making itself felt. Billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have long trumpeted plans to make space travel a possibility for ordinary people and those ideas are inching ever closer to reality. At the same time, other companies plan to mine the Moon for helium-3, or asteroids for precious metals.

Science writer Andrew May takes an entertaining, in-depth look at the triumphs and heroic failures of our quixotic quest to commercialise the final frontier.

Music is shaped by the science of sound.

How can music - an artform - have anything to do with science? Yet there are myriad ways in which the two are intertwined, from the basics of music theory and the design of instruments to hi-fi systems and how the brain processes music.

Science writer Andrew May traces the surprising connections between science and music, from the theory of sound waves to the way musicians use mathematical algorithms to create music.

The most obvious impact of science on music can be seen in the way electronic technology has revolutionised how we create, record and listen to music. Technology has also provided new insights into the effects that different music has on the brain, to the extent that some algorithms can now predict our reactions with uncanny accuracy, which raises a worrying question: how long will it be before AI can create music on a par with humans?

There is a huge gulf between the real physics of space travel and the way it is commonly portrayed in movies and TV shows. That's not because space physics is difficult or obscure - most of the details were understood by the end of the 18th century - but because it can often be bafflingly counter-intuitive for a general audience. The purpose of this book isn't to criticize or debunk popular sci-fi depictions, which can be very entertaining, but to focus on how space physics really works. This is done with the aid of numerous practical illustrations taken from the works of serious science fiction authors - from Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke to Larry Niven and Andy Weir - who have taken positive pleasure in getting their scientific facts right.

People are used to seeing fake physics in science fiction - concepts like faster-than-light travel, antigravity and time travel to name a few. The fiction label ought to be a giveaway, but some SF writers - especially those with a background in professional science - are so adept at technobabble that it can be difficult to work out what is fake and what is real. To confuse matters further, Isaac Asimov's 1948 piece about the fictitious time-travelling substance thiotimoline was written, not as a short story, but in the form of a spoof research paper.

The boundaries between fact and fiction can also be blurred by physicists themselves - sometimes unintentionally, sometimes with tongue-in-cheek, sometimes to satirize perceived weaknesses in research practices. Examples range from hoaxes aimed at exposing poor editorial standards in academic publications, through thought experiments that sound like the plot of a sci-fi movie to April Fools' jokes. Even the latter may carry a serious message, whether about the sociology of science or poking fun at legitimate but far-out scientific hypotheses.

This entertaining book is a joyous romp exploring the whole spectrum of fake physics - from science to fiction and back again.

Extraterrestrial life is a common theme in
science fiction, but is it a serious prospect in the real world? Astrobiology
is the emerging field of science that seeks to answer this question.

The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos
is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. Astrophysicist
Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking
at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale 'signatures' it produces, and how
such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the Solar System or on the many 'exoplanets'
now being discovered by the Kepler and TESS missions.

Along the way the book addresses key questions such as the riddle of Fermi's
paradox ('Where is everybody?') and the crucial role of DNA and water - they're
essential to 'life as we know it', but is the same true of alien life? And the really
big question: when we eventually find extraterrestrials, will they be friendly
or hostile?

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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, with little regard for
scientific accuracy, in several Hollywood movies.

Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May disentangles
fact from fiction in this fast-moving and entertaining account, covering the
nature and history of comets and asteroids, the reason why some orbits are more
hazardous than others, the devastating local and global effects that an impact
event would produce, and - more optimistically - the way future space missions
could avert a catastrophe.

In the sixty years since his death Einstein has become a legend. The profound obscurity of his theories has contributed to this, as has his archetypal mad scientist appearance. His philosophical and political utterances - both real and imagined - are regularly used to clinch arguments online or in the pub. So how can a modern reader separate myth from reality? This short book attempts to do just that!

ANDREW MAY has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in astrophysics from Manchester University. He went on to work in the shadowy world of defence science and now earns his living as a freelance writer and defence consultant. He is author of Isaac Newton pocket GIANT (2015).

Mars is back. Suddenly everyone - from Elon Musk to Ridley Scott to Donald Trump - is talking about going to the Red Planet.

When the Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon in 1969, many people imagined Mars would be next. However NASA's Viking 1, which landed in 1976, was just a robot. The much-anticipated crewed mission failed to materialise, defeated by a combination of technological and political challenges.

Four decades after Viking and almost half a century after Apollo technology has improved beyond recognition - as has politics. As private ventures like SpaceX seize centre stage from NASA, Mars has undergone a seismic shift - it's become the prime destination for future human expansion and colonisation.

But what's it really like on Mars, and why should anyone want to go there? How do you get there and what are the risks? Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May answers these questions and more, as he traces the history of our fascination with the Red Planet.