Book reviews: the latest best reads
Yearbook of Astronomy 2021
Editor: Brian Jones
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
ISBN: 978-1-52677-187-2
Price: £18. 99 (Pb) 384pp
e Yearbook of Astronomy is an annual publication that endeavours to inspire amateur astronomers by
providing observing information for the forthcoming year in an easy-to-read and accessible format.
Its contents can be divided into two parts. e rst is the monthly sky notes that describe the
positions of the planets, phases of the Moon, forthcoming eclipses, simple star charts and meteor
showers for observers in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. ese notes are
supplemented by a number of fascinating articles that cover a wealth of cultural and historical topics
about the latest space missions and cosmological research. e authors of these individual essays are:
John Barentine, Martin Braddock, Neil Haggarth, Jan Hardy, David Harland, Pauline Harris, Rod
Hine, Carolyn Kennett, Rangi Matamua, Mary McIntyre, Peter Meadows, Peter Rea, Richard
Sanderson, Hēmi Whaanga and Lionel Wilson. I challenge anyone not to learn something new
from these articles as they cover so many diverse subjects. It must have been tough to choose and
then edit so much information into one publication.
I have already enjoyed using this book as I plan my observational and photographic projects for the
coming year. Note, however, that the star charts are for planning purposes only (they are not
sufficient to use at the telescope) and the monthly sky guides would bene t from including deep-sky
objects in addition to the comings and goings of Solar System objects. ese comments aside, the
Yearbook of Astronomy is thoroughly recommended, both as a planner for the year and as a worthwhile
read in its own right. I am already looking forward to 2022’s publication.
Mark Radice
What Stars Are Made Of The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Author: Donovan Moore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 978-0-67423-7-377
Price: £23. 95 (Hb) 304pp
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was an excellent astronomer and this is an excellent biography. In its 250
pages we meet a most remarkable woman, born in England in 1900 and taken from the world by
lung cancer in 1979. Between those dates she made huge contributions both to science and to the
demolition of prevailing attitudes towards the role of women in the world.
Donovan Moore’s biography sets out to present Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin as a human being living
within the culture of her times. She spent her entire life ghting male prejudice. It is this ght that
dominates his account of her life, and not unreasonably, given her story. ose looking for a detailed
explanation of her research will be disappointed and, I confess, I was left wanting to know more
about how she made her most celebrated discovery, the abundance of hydrogen in stellar
atmospheres. We learn enough about it to follow her personal story, but not enough to understand
her methods and thinking. She was writing at a time when the received wisdom was that the
composition of the stars would be essentially the same as that of Earth, and that an Earth heated to
stellar temperatures would have a similar spectroscopic signature to that of the stars. Cecilia Payne
found otherwise, concluding from an analysis of the famous Harvard spectroscopic plates that
hydrogen was by far the predominant element.
However – and here we feel the real thrust of this book’s narrative – she was persuaded to temper her
ndings by adding a disclaimer to the effect that this conclusion was probably spurious. e pressure
came from Henry Norris Russel who, ironically, would come to the same conclusion himself, two
years later, by entirely different means.
From the outset she faced discrimination and prejudice. Her degree was not, in title, a degree at all.
At lectures the few female students following sciences had to sit at the front and endure whistling
and foot stomping from their male counterparts as they took their places. Once on the staff, she
gave lectures but was not listed as a lecturer and she was overlooked for many promotions on the
grounds of her sex. It is shocking, from our historical vantage point, to see so many of the great
scientists of the twentieth century acting like a sorry bunch of at-earthers with regard to the ability
of women, but that, alas, is how they look. It is disconcerting that Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s foreword
suggests that this battle is not yet entirely concluded. In the end, though, this is a heartwarming
biography and a celebration of a life well lived. Such a tribute to Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is
overdue and her biographer has done her proud.
Olly Penrice
Neutron Stars: The Quest to Understand Zombies of the Cosmos
Author: Katia Moskvitch
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 978-0-674-91935- 8
Price: £23. 95 (Hb) 304pp
Enigmatic neutron stars are the tiny remnants of exploded stellar giants, are of the order of 20km in
diameter, and are exceptionally dense. A teaspoon of neutron-star material would weigh several
million tonnes, and they can spin as fast as a thousand times per second. Supernovae are rare, and
the formation of neutron stars, on average, runs at a rate of about two a century in the Milky Way.
ere are many classes of neutron star, in the form of radio pulsars, magnetars, millisecond pulsars,
recycled pulsars and anomalous X-ray pulsars to name just some of the objects that are described in
detail.
e book opens with the cutting-edge discovery, by the LIGO and Virgo observatories in August
2017, of gravitational waves emitted by two neutron stars in the process of colliding. Following this,
a worldwide team, assembled over some years, swung into action to carry out what is described as
multi-messenger astronomy. Colliding neutron stars unleash the momentous forces that are needed
to create most of the very heavy elements such as silver, gold and platinum.
As we learn about the science of neutron stars, the author travels to radio telescopes around the
world, such as the high altitude ALMA in the vast Atacama Desert, telling us a little about the
history and geography of the various sites. She introduces the astronomers who used these places to
make often tedious, detailed analysis of data, and who either gained disappointment or fame for
their efforts. At the same time, we hear of some of the human stories around these places and
events. She also explains the roles neutron stars play in our understanding of general relativity, dark
matter and fast radio bursts, and how we might use neutron stars to advance our knowledge of the
cosmos.
e book is an absorbing mix of up-to-date science, detective work and history. It is well written and
has both ‘deeper-dive’ sections and plenty of references for those who would like to read further into
the subject.
Michael White
The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World
Author: Sarah Stewart Johnson
Publisher: Allen Lane
ISBN: 978-0-241-21600- 2
Price: £20 (Hb) 288pp
Autumn 2020 provided a stunning opportunity to study the surface of Mars as it passed through
opposition. rough a carefully focused telescope, the surface features slowly rotated as the southern
polar ice cap receded under the summer Sun.
While watching the surface of Mars throughout the apparition, I was reading the Sirens of Mars by
Sarah Stewart Johnson. It is a fascinating story that describes how our understanding of the climate
and geology of our close neighbour has been captured and understood. It tells the tale of the
mapping efforts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the frustrations of the canal controversy,
early spacecraft to Mars including failed missions, and the ambiguous interpretations of Martian
samples. e book then goes on to describe the current eet of orbiters and rovers exploring the
geological and climatic processes that make Mars what it is today.
Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist with rst-hand experience working on Mars
exploration, and most excitingly, the possibility of current or past life on the surface.
She charmingly charts her own life story as a scientist through university and as a researcher working
on the Mars rover operations team, researching how life on Earth can be found in the most
inhospitable environments that resemble the conditions on Mars some millennia ago, and
wonderfully interweaves stories based her own experience into the Martian odyssey.
While this book will not teach you how to observe Mars, it will inspire you to want to go outside
and nd Syrtis Major, Elysium and arsis for yourself. It will enhance your understanding of what
can be seen on Mars and how we can know so much – and why we continue to explore the
tantalising clues that hint at past life on this fascinating world.
Mark Radice
ViewBook reviews: the latest best reads
January 2021
Astronomy Now