“Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe” by Phil Plait

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Rating: 5/5 Stars

A wonderful and imaginative trip through the Solar System and beyond as the author, using what we know from astronomy, along with some help from the ‘ship of the imagination’, to transport the reader to see what the sky would look like on non-Earth like worlds.

Starting with the moon, the author then brings the reader to Mars, the asteroids and comets, Saturn and Pluto. Moving beyond the solar system, the author shows what the sky would look like to an observer on a planet with two suns (like Star Wars’ Tatooine), in a globular cluster with millions of closely packed stars and inside a nebula creating new stars. The final journey would be to a mind-twisting look at the last sky you would see if you were to go near and then enter the event horizon of a black hole.

If you ever wondered how alien skies could look like, this is the book to read. It is also a good book for writers who want to get the details of how the skies in their worlds would look like under alien skies correct.

Book read from 2023/07/27 to 2023/08/07