Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

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Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 1,599 ratings · 183 reviews

A lively astronomy primer that uses cataclysmic scenarios to explain the universe?s most fascinating events.

According to astronomer Philip Plait, the universe is an apocalypse waiting to happen But how much do we really need to fear from things like black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and supernovae? And if we should be scared, is there anything we can do to save ourselves? Wit...more

Hardcover, 326 pages

Published October 16th 2008 by Viking Adult (first published 2008)

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Dec 29, 2008 Todd rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-xmas-gifts

I really enjoyed this book. It's a collection of esoteric topics in astronomy all tied together by one thing -- they could possibly destroy the Earth or at least most of the life on it.

Each chapter covers a particular threat -- asteroids and comets, solar events, death of the sun, stuff in our galaxy, etc. It ends with a mind bending chapter on the death of the Universe -- after the galaxies have dissolved and protons have started decaying.

I learned a lot from this book. If you were into astrono...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Judyta Szaciłło rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gnr-pop-science, rate-enjoyable

Where do I start?

The book is uneven. I loved it at the beginning, was annoyed and a little bored in the middle only to turn fascinated at the end. It is quite well written, accessible piece of popular science, I admit. But there are serious drawbacks that don't allow me to give this book more than three stars:

1) Repetitiveness: reading about the effect of gamma-ray burst once is really enough. The seccond time is slightly annoying, the third and the fourth simply spoil the pleasure.

2) Pointless...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Holden Attradies rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: skeptics-shelf, science

Phil is the king of making Astronomy fun and approachable, whilst not talking down to you (well, not to much).

I went into this book having heard a lot about it on podcasts and web sites via the skeptic community so I wasn't expecting too many sunrises, but I got a few. The first half of the book was just about what I expect and I adored it (I adored it all by the way), but the second half really caught me off guard. I'm still not sure why exactly and after I've let the book digest in my brain fo...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Came across this book, and it fit in with my current obsession of post-apocalyptic stories. This non-fiction book looks at different ways that stars, asteroids, solar flares, gamma rays, etc., can wreak havoc on our planet. Luckily, most of these are very unlikely to kill us. Plait does a good job of explaining extremely difficult scientific subjects; however, even a good writer such as Plait can have trouble keeping these explanations from being a bit dry, thus the four stars instead of five. A...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Clint rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Great book! It started out awesome with some stuff about asteroids, but I knew most of that anyway from the Bill Bryson science book. Then the book got kind of boring for awhile, but starting with the chapter about aliens, it rocketed back into awesome and didn't let up till it was done, and the last chapter, about the death of the universe, was the coolest pop science I've ever read. I got a little tired of the chapter intros where he wrote some death scenarios, and I got a little tired of him...more

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May 24, 2011 Haley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-irp-books, favorites

The book opens up with an average man named Mark, and proceeds to tell about his morning when an asteroid that ends all life on earth comes crashing down. Philip Plait presents some of the scariest end-of-the-world disasters, from supernovas, alien encounters, black holes, and even the expansion of the universe itself. Plait illustrates why outer space is not as remote as most think. Each chapter is a new scenario that looks into a different phenomenon, and explains how the planet would be affec...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature, science, non-fiction, summer-reading

I really enjoyed this book. From the title, you can probably guess that this book appealed to my slightly fatalistic fascination with end-of-the-world, apocalyptic scenarios. I love pondering the unavoidable and the inevitable. And this book presents, of all the environmental, weather, and disease-related possibilities for humans to kill themselves, absolutely the most unavoidable events, with absolutely the most fatalistic perspective. Which is why I loved it.

Each chapter in this book is devote...more I really enjoyed this book. From the title, you can probably guess that this book appealed to my slightly fatalistic fascination with end-of-the-world, apocalyptic scenarios. I love pondering the unavoidable and the inevitable. And this book presents, of all the environmental, weather, and disease-related possibilities for humans to kill themselves, absolutely the most unavoidable events, with absolutely the most fatalistic perspective. Which is why I loved it.

Each chapter in this book is devoted to a different way that the planet could be destroyed from outer space. And the title of the book isn’t overreaching at all: note that it isn’t called “These are the Ways the World *Could* End,” or “the Ways the World *Might* End”: it’s definitely how the world will end. The only question is when.

The first chapter is definitely the most gripping, since it’s the most likely to happen during the tenure of humans on Earth: asteroid and comet impacts. Not only is it extremely likely, it’s happened before: the asteroid that landed on Earth that killed the dinosaurs created a crater so large that you can really only see it from space. The really alarming part of asteroid/comet impact is that we could see it coming. The author points out that the comet Hale-Bopp, which passed us a few years ago, was twenty-five miles across, and, had it hit the Earth, “would have made the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs look like a wet firecracker.”

The rest of the chapters cover such fun and comforting subjects as annihilation by sun malfunction, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, black holes, hostile aliens, and the eventual death of the entire universe. I really enjoyed the way each chapter begins with a little scenario that describes what an observer on Earth would see as the event unfolded. (And, if the human observer wouldn’t have lasted very long, the scenario carries on without the benefit of that human perspective.)

The author, Philip Plait, is a witty and engaging writer who manages to make potentially dull astronomical details come to life. Some of my favorite moments in his way with language:

“For those of you clinging to hope, there is some life that might survive this stage of the Earth’s distant future [the death of our Sun]. Footnote: My suggestion: let it go.”

“The Sun is a mighty, vast, furiously seething cauldron of mass and energy. . . . Invisible forces writhe and wrestle for control on its surface, and when it loses its temper, the consequences can be dire and even lethal. That is what it means to be an ‘ordinary’ star.”

“Sure, black holes can kill us, and in a variety of interesting and gruesome ways. . . . Remember: when you stare into the abyss, sometimes it stares back at you.”

However, even his wit and facility with language couldn’t save me from getting bogged down in the black holes chapter. To be fair, black holes and quantum physics aren’t the easiest subjects for a lay reader to absorb in 75 pages or so. I know that he tried to keep things moving, but I ended up skimming a bit.

The last chapter is the most staggering, in terms of its scale and its topic, and, besides the chapter on alien invasion, is the one that left the greatest impression on me. It’s the end of everything in the universe. Plait explains how, over the almost unimaginable eons of time to come (he tries to explain just how long this will take, but it really boggles the mind), slowly everything will end. After all the stars have burned themselves out, after the galaxy itself has evaporated through interstellar collisions, after even neutron stars have burned out, after matter itself has reached the end of its existence (remember the “half-life” of atomic particles?), even black holes will disintegrate. At that point the Universe will be “an ethereally thin slurry” of particles, “dark, randomized, silent.”

Am I just crazy, or is it totally fascinating to consider this stuff? I guess I’m captivated by things that are completely out of my control. And with cosmological events, there’s not much to do but sit back and see what happens. Of course, by the time black holes manage to disintegrate, humans will be long gone, but still.

Recommended if you love apocalyptic scenarios, astronomy, or a wittily written combination of the two!(less)

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Dec 21, 2010 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars

Death from the Skies!'s nine chapters all follow the same pattern: a brief, moderately sensationalized depiction of an astronomical disaster followed by a somewhat more sober discussion of the event, with an emphasis on how likely and/or subject to mitigation it is. The book more-or-less progresses from near-term potential events (like an meteor collision) to long-term inevitabilities (the eventual death of the sun, and way beyond). Plait's enthusiasm is palpable throughout -- he just loves this...more Death from the Skies!'s nine chapters all follow the same pattern: a brief, moderately sensationalized depiction of an astronomical disaster followed by a somewhat more sober discussion of the event, with an emphasis on how likely and/or subject to mitigation it is. The book more-or-less progresses from near-term potential events (like an meteor collision) to long-term inevitabilities (the eventual death of the sun, and way beyond). Plait's enthusiasm is palpable throughout -- he just loves this stuff.

I've read a lot of books that covered similar topics, but if you don't read new ones (this one was published in 2008), things tend to change. For instance, we used to think that our sun was in the class of stars that could go nova, inexplicably increasing in brightness for a period of hours or days -- possibly long enough to fry the Earth to a crisp. In the current understanding, stars like ours don't go nova; only hydrogen-gorging white dwarfs do (whew!). On the other hand, I'm a little more scared of big meteors than I used to be; turns out blowing them up with nukes probably doesn't work at all, and even deflecting them is likely to be much harder than I thought. So while Plait's book covered a lot of ground familiar to me, there were usually new wrinkles; I learned plenty.

One reasonable quibble I have is that Plait is a little glib about scale. Only in the chapter on the death of the universe does he rely on exponential notation, and then only because the numbers are so unimaginably huge. Throughout most of the book he uses million and billion in adjoining sentences. Even these numbers are so beyond human scale that I think they're difficult to keep hold of; I think our brains tend to render them as "really big" and "really big (but bigger)" -- it's hard (for me anyway) to keep in mind that a billion is a thousand million and that a trillion is a thousand thousand million. It's geeky, but I kind of wish he'd used exponential notation throughout.

My unreasonable quibble with the book illustrates why I'd make a spectacularly lousy scientist, particularly in the chapter on "Deep Time" and the end of the universe. I can accept that we can make assertions about the age of the universe and what happened to bring us to the current point -- if we look at an object that's 6 billion light years away, we're seeing it as it was 6 billion years ago unless pretty much everything we think we know about physics is wrong. So we can learn about state of the universe 6 billion years ago by direct observation, and extrapolate backward.

But foretelling the end of the universe involves quantities of time that literally, I think, beggar the imagination. As Plait acknowledges, you can't use metaphors -- you can't say, for instance, that the 14-ish billion years age of the universe to date is an eyeblink compared to Deep Time, because an eyeblink is way, way, way, too long. It's certainly scientifically reasonable to extrapolate from our observations of the universe now. But for us to presume we really know what's going to happen on those scales strikes my unscientific, intuitive mind as enormous hubris. Suppose for a second that there's some big change in the universe that happens once every 20 billion years. It hasn't happened once yet, but in the Deep Time scale, it would happen billions upon billions upon billions of times. That's not a scientific notion -- I certainly can't propose a mechanism for some fundamental shift in the universe, or draw up equations to describe whatever it might be.

But what I can observe is that throughout recorded history, when we think we have things pretty much figured out, something upsets the apple cart and we discover it's way more complicated than we thought. And, from the oldest historical records to just last week (with news story about experimental results failing to match the predictions of string theory), the strangification of the universe is happening faster and faster.

So while I don't know when, how, or why (although pseudo-scientifically, dark matter still seems to be a bit of a wild card), I'd (intuitively, unscientifically) bet that long before the universe gets to the Deep Time that Plait describes, our understanding of it will significantly change. Probably before the sun swells to a red giant, or within my lifetime, or possibly even next week. And that's what I love -- the notion that despite our best efforts, the universe will always reveal complexities that transcend our understanding. We need something even weirder than string theory? Bring it on!

My irrationality aside, I liked Plait's book a lot. Certainly found it thought-provoking.

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Dec 09, 2009 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

The full title here is Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End, and in it astrophysicist (or something along those lines) Phillip Plait takes on the bombastic topic of global annihilation. Specifically, he looks at all the ways Earth could destroyed by threats from outer space, dedicating a chapter to each threat. Topics include being hit by an asteroid (or meteor or meteorite or whatever it would be called at that point), blasted by a too-close supernova, having our electri...more The full title here is Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End, and in it astrophysicist (or something along those lines) Phillip Plait takes on the bombastic topic of global annihilation. Specifically, he looks at all the ways Earth could destroyed by threats from outer space, dedicating a chapter to each threat. Topics include being hit by an asteroid (or meteor or meteorite or whatever it would be called at that point), blasted by a too-close supernova, having our electrical systems fried by a particularly obnoxious solar flare, being immolated when our dying sun gives out a final cosmic belch, being yanked down into a meandering black hole, and perhaps most strangely the eventual heat death of the entire universe.

After presenting each apocalyptic scenario in the form of a small vignette, Plait takes you through the hard science associated with such things, usually accompanied by generous use of scientific notation in an attempt at giving you a proper sense of scale. So you learn about the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth and how those could be screwed up in the event of a huge solar flare, for example, or what Einstein's theories have to say about the event horizon of a black hole. The author even poses some crazy solutions to problems that straddle the line between science fiction and fact, like the idea of millennium-long endeavors to move Earth to a more distant orbit to save it from an expanding sun. It's all really interesting for a nerd like me, and Plait does a pretty good job of keeping it high level and sensational enough so that you don't have to solve any equations. It's not necessarily light reading, but anybody with a decent high school science education and some imagination can follow along well enough to get the point.

You might think that this all serves to play on some grotesque fascination with planet-wide (or solar system-wide or galaxy-wide, or even universe-wide) death and destruction. There's some of that, particularly in the chapters on asteroid collisions and monster solar flares, both of which HAVE happened and WILL happen again . But those two events aside, Plait quickly moves on to events that are next to impossible (e.g., being zapped by a nearby gamma ray burst) or guaranteed to happen only after a few billion more years (e.g., our sun running out of fuel). It's on topics like these that Plait just shrugs his shoulders and says "Yeah, but what the hell it's fun to conjecture, so let's just go for it."

And he's right --it IS fun to move the decimal point a few places in our probability estimates or fast forward the clock by trillions of years. Mental problems aside, you're not going to lie awake at night wondering if you're going to fall into the supermassive black hole in the middle of the Milky Way, but Plait is a good enough popular science writer to make it fascinating to hear about what would happen if you did.(less)

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Aug 27, 2009 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Rebecca by: Author's blog

Shelves: nonfiction

I'll be honest with you -- I like pop science books, magazines and blogs even when I know the subject. (Read: they are about astronomy*.) Part of it is reading to see how others explain a subject, which helps me learn things. Part of it is that the narrative for explaining the science to others is different than the research narrative -- while I could easily find out plenty on stellar evolution of a solar-type star -- how the temperature and size and mass changes -- and climactic models of the E...more I'll be honest with you -- I like pop science books, magazines and blogs even when I know the subject. (Read: they are about astronomy*.) Part of it is reading to see how others explain a subject, which helps me learn things. Part of it is that the narrative for explaining the science to others is different than the research narrative -- while I could easily find out plenty on stellar evolution of a solar-type star -- how the temperature and size and mass changes -- and climactic models of the Earth with increased stellar flux and work out 'what happens to the Earth as the Sun ages', most pop science books will focus on that if they talk about the Sun. Plus, it makes my job easier when I brush back my astronomer headband and put on my skiffy-writer hat.

Death from the Skies! (yes, the exclamation point is in there) is basically a book written by an astronomer about all the ways that astronomy can kill us. It ranges from things most people know about (asteroids, supernovae), more obscure things (gamma-ray bursts, mini black-holes, collapse of the vacuum), to things that are inevitable but not going to happen in our lifetimes (death of the Sun, collision of the Milky Way with Andromeda, the fate of the Universe). Dr. Plait spells out exactly what bad effects this will have on our poor Earth -- gleefully, even -- but he's careful to note exactly how likely it is. (Though he does note things like 'sun turns into red giant' are certain, but that none of us will be killed by this, unless we are planning on living for billions of years.)

I did have some quibbles with the science in the Death of the Sun chapter. Mostly about outer planets' satellites**. Dr. Plait notes that as the Sun turns into a red giant, it will be getting a lot brighter***, and that this will spell bad news for a lot of things, including the many moons of the outer solar system. See, most of the jovian planets' moons are made of an ice/rock mix that does fine as long as things stay below freezing, but would turn into the Solar System's Biggest Comet if heated up†. My quibble is that Dr. Plait states they will be completely vaporized, while I note that many of them have differentiated -- much like how the Earth has a rocky crust and mantle and a nickel-iron core††, some of these moons have ice mantles and rock cores. While a moon that's well-mixed might carry off the rock as the water ice vaporizes, a differentiated moon might keep the rocky core intact even with the surface boiled off.

I know, pick, pick, pick. This is a minor detail in one chapter, though. Overall, I really liked this book. (Also, the cover for the softcover edition is awesome.) It also gave me some fun ideas about stuff to write fiction about, and offered a few new analogies to use when teaching and answering questions. (I'll add it to 'What If the Moon Didn't Exist Voyages to Earths That Might Have Been' on my list of 'sources to answer odd questions'.)

---

* Except deep cosmology, relativity and black holes, for which I still consider myself an rather educated layperson on. Mostly because reading the 'Ask an Astronomer' questions on those make me cringe. I'm competent enough to know the basics, and to teach them, but the devil's in the details.

** Since 'stuff that orbits other planets' is kind of my field.

*** And bigger -- the red-giant Sun from Earth would be the size of a dinner plate held at arm's length, and the daytime temperature would be enough to melt the Earth's crust, and the only reason the Earth wouldn't be engulfed by the Sun is that the Sun is shedding mass like someone on one of those reality weight-loss shows my little brother likes, and this pushes the Earth out to an orbit that is merely 'rock-meltingly hot' rather than 'inside the Sun'.

† I actually recall some papers that noticed water vapor orbiting around red giants, which the authors attribute to something like our Solar System's Kuiper Belt (aka Pluto and friends) getting their surfaces boiled off.

†† Yes, I can explain How the Heck We Know That.(less)

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Jun 26, 2009 Evanston Public Library added it

There's pulp fiction and pulp science fiction, but is there a genre called pulp science nonfiction? If there is, Plait's book certainly qualifies. With a lurid cover in eye-catching, fiery orange (that's the burning asteroid hurtling toward Earth), and a title that screams terror and destruction, this lively book will take you on a cheery tour of the many ways the universe is out to get us. Perhaps a meteor will barrel down to obliterate us. A nearby star going supernova would engulf the solar s...more

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Jun 12, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: apocolypse, science, top-shelf, astronomy

I've always found the end of the world fascinating. So many cultures have put together their own ideas of how the world will end, from the Norse Ragnarök to the Christian apocalypse to the Hindu cycle of creation and destruction. We live in a world that was, for a long time, unpredictable to us and on many occasions seemed to be outwardly hostile. Our ancestors faced floods and earthquakes and disease, with no idea of where these things came from, why they happened or how to stop them. And so th...more

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May 04, 2009 Thermalsatsuma rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-a-week-2009

From asteroid and comet impacts, solar flares and gamma ray bursts, rogue black holes and the eventual evaporation of the entire universe there are a lot of interesting ways that the world could end (and assuming that we do nothing about it, *will* end). In this book Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy blog and JREF fame examines different doom scenarios, explaining the science behind them in an accessible and amusing way and finally calculates the odds of each of them happening to put things in perspec...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Jorge rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Death From The Skies by Philip Plait, Ph.D.

“Death From The Skies" is the entertaining book about how the universe is trying to kill you. Astronomer Dr. Philip Plait, using the latest in astronomical knowledge, takes us on exciting journey through our universe and enlightens us on the various cosmological hazards that are present. This 336-page book is composed of the following nine chapters: 1. Target Earth: Asteroid and Comet Impacts, 2. Sunburn, 3. The Stellar Fury of Supernovae, 4. Cosmic Blo...more

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Mar 12, 2010 Sheehan rated it 4 of 5 stars

As someone who had long since forsaken most things scientific as not worth my reading time, I have to say I was really impressed and enjoyed this basic introduction to all things astronomical...and the ways they could kill you!

The book is based around the likelihood and means by which the (awe-inspiring) manifold aspects of the universe might do humans in...most will be pleased to know only two of them were viable, or shall I better say could we do anything about, asteroids and Gamma Ray Bursts...more

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Dec 05, 2010 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: astronomy

I don't know Phil Plait personally, but I've talked with him online a couple of times over the years. I'm a big fan; I read his blog every day. His books are always great fun and this one is no exception. It may sound depressing but his sense of humor makes reading about the possible ways of our future destruction a riot. My favorite: self-replicating killer machines sent by homicidal aliens. Chances of it actually happening? Very low. But it's fun to talk about. Most of the various types of des...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Garver rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've always thought space was way cool and way mindblowing, and so it's nice to see an actual Space Person write a book about it in layman's layman's terms. Each chapter is about a particular kind of event -- some near earth, some arrestingly far away, presented in the context of how that event would change our planet if near enough or pointed close enough to it (answer -- in almost every case, the oceans are boiled into space and the surface is sterilized to a depth of miles). The majority of t...more

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Oct 27, 2010 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: astronomy, science

This is a fascinating, fun book to read. The author has kept the book light-hearted with an easy-going sense of humor.

I majored in astronomy and physics in undergraduate school, yet I still learned some interesting things from this book. I learned that an asteroid collision is perhaps the most threatening form of astronomical catastrophe for us. And interestingly, an asteroid collision is the most avoidable catastrophe--though not by nuking the errant asteroid. A much better approach is suggest...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Carol Brannigan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reference

Wow- what a read and what a way to knock humanities hubris down by about 10³. This book underlays the fascinating ways that our universe is trying to kill us. It starts with asteroids on up to the end of the entire universe (yes- it is inevitable but not for a very very very long time). Dr. Plait keeps a very conversational tone throughout the book which along with his "dumbing" down but not so dumb scientific explanations keep this book very easy to read but also doesn't make you feel dumb.

On t...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Eric Kolb rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science

If you have even a passing interest in the night skies, astrophysics, or the end of everything, this book is a must-read. Ostensibly, Plait walks through a number of end-of-the-world scenarios (including more comprehensive end-of-the-solar-system, end-of-the-galaxy, and end-of-the-universe scenarios) and explains the actual science behind them. The explanations are well done and easy to follow for a reasonably educated lay person. It's not just hollow fear-mongering either; he's always up front...more

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Oct 05, 2009 Brian Hodges rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science, bloody-brilliant

This is pop-science at its most fun. What better way to learn about the world of astronomy than by learning about all the ways the Universe might kill all life on Earth? "Death From the Skies" uses this setup as the jumping off point to teach the reader all about black holes, the Big Bang, gamma ray bursts, the life cycle of stars and the eventual end of the Universe.

Far from being a treastise of doom and gloom, or worse, a sensationalist tabloid piece designed to ignite hysteria and sell books...more This is pop-science at its most fun. What better way to learn about the world of astronomy than by learning about all the ways the Universe might kill all life on Earth? "Death From the Skies" uses this setup as the jumping off point to teach the reader all about black holes, the Big Bang, gamma ray bursts, the life cycle of stars and the eventual end of the Universe.

Far from being a treastise of doom and gloom, or worse, a sensationalist tabloid piece designed to ignite hysteria and sell books based on fear, the author (Phil Plait of the popular Bad Astronomy blog) stays grounded in science and reality... while still indulging the natural tendency in all of us to speculate on the "what ifs" of worst-case scenarios.

Each chapter begins with a Hollywood-like setup, where Plait narrates the mass-extinction event du jour with Armageddon-like seriousness mixed with what almost seems like gleeful excitement at the prospect of going down in this fashion. Then, once he's got you pooping in your britches, he dials it back a notch and explains the real science and the real ODDS behind such an event actually happening in our lifetime... or the lifetime of humanity for that matter. Even in the potentially throwaway-silly chapter that deals with alien attacks, he keeps it grounded in the science of, "how MIGHT an alien civilization go about attacking us." In the end what you come away with is a reinforced appreciation for how amazing, how intricate, how VAST our universe (and even our tiny place in it) really is. You might even come away learning new things about topics you thought you'd already learned back in ninth grade science.

Come to think of it, this book could actually make a great supplemental text book for the properly motivated teacher. Rather than learning about things in the abstract, how much better to put a tangible application upon various science concepts... a "how does this affect ME?" mentality. Well, in this book, the answer and motivator is quite simple: "It could KILL YOU."

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Jul 10, 2009 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars

A decade or more ago I read Lawrence Krauss's the Physics of Star Trek and Beyond Star Trek and the 2nd half of the latter book was poorly expanded to create Death from the Skies. Phil Plait is an engaging and funny speaker sadly these attributes don't transfer well to text. The section intros are either too or not detailed enough. The intermezzo on aliens is trite at best and brings up content better discussed in a handful of wikipedia articles and the remainder is a hodge-podge of blog-quality...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Melki rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science, up-at-the-crack-of-doom

AAAAAAAA!!! We're all going to die!!!!

Well, that's not exactly news. From the moment we're born, Death turns our hourglass and sits twiddling his bony thumbs, waiting as our grains of sand dribble toward the bottom.

But...there's a chance, however remote, that...

We're going to die HORRIBLY! Gasping for breath as our oxygen burns up, pulverized to death by a shockwave, or even SPAGHETTIFIED into nothingness by a Black Hole.

Each chapter begins with a Worst Case Scenario, made even scarier by the us...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars

An interesting book, it looks as if Phil Plait started it as "what are the chances of an astronomical event damaging society?" and finished it by wrapping up the history of the universe. If you want to cut to the quick, flip to the end where he has a chart with the probability of the following in each person's lifetime:
* asteroid impact (1/700,000)
* solar flare or coronal mass ejection (CME): not measurable
* supernova (1/10 million)
* gamma ray burst (1/14 million)
* black hole (1/1 trillion)
* ali...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Another fantastic science book for the non rocket scientist. It was a fantastic and slightly terrifying look at what will probably and not so probably destroy us in the end. It might be a supernova or an asteroid or a black hole, but whatever it is, it will be terrifying and hopefully quick and relatively painless for those of us alive at that time.

Each chapter presents a new horrifying method of terror that the universe can unleash on us. The science behind gamma ray burst that may fry our atm...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Ricardo Lane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science

This book was exactly what I expected it would be. It's a rundown of the various ways threats from off-planet might spell catastrophe for our planet, starting with the most obvious and most probable (meteor or asteroid collision) and finishing with endings we probably shouldn't worry too much about (the heat death of the Universe). Along the way, Plait explain in detail comprehensible to the layman the scientific details about each method along with giving an idea about how much of a threat each...more

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Jan 24, 2011 melydia rated it 4 of 5 stars

You know, considering this is all about the various cataclysmic ways the world can end, I really expected to be more engrossed. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood or something, but I could never read more than a handful of pages before my mind started wandering or I fell asleep. I suspect this is largely my fault, as Plait is clearly in love with this topic and with astronomy in general. He describes each ghastly scenario with glee, from asteroid collisions to the death of the universe, and demonst...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Bill Holmes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: astronomy, cosmology, disasters, natural-disasters, science

Despite the sensational title, "Death from the Skies!" is actually a witty and authoritative introduction to astronomy, cosmology and eschatology (the way it all ends). Potential sources of doom range from threats that we can avoid or mitigate (asteroids, comets, solar flares) to "not very likely to happen, but we're toast if it does" (a nearby supernova, a gamma ray burst, a black hole) to "inevitable, but not in the lifetime of our species" (death of the sun, death of the galaxies, death of th...more

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Jan 24, 2010 Allisonperkel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor, science

Wonderful, quick romp through the science of the skies - and how what's up there really, really wants us dead. Well it would if it had feelings; it doesn't care about us and what happens to us doesn't really matter to it.

Dr. Plait, with his irreverent wit and deep knowledge of astronomy, teaches us a lot about the universe in the guise of telling us how we could die (and how unlikely it is. Well unlikely with a timeline in some cases). From runaway meteors to supernova and gamma burst all the w...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

My most recent read was from astronomer Phil Plait, who writes the Bad Astronomy blog over at Slate. "Death from the Skies" chronicles all of the possible ways that our planet, and life as we know it, could be destroyed by non-terrestrial natural events. This is definitely not light reading nor does it always perk you up, but it is funny, highly informative, and humbling. Plait's description of our solar system, galaxy, and universe help you to appreciate our position in the cosmos. But how do w...more My most recent read was from astronomer Phil Plait, who writes the Bad Astronomy blog over at Slate. "Death from the Skies" chronicles all of the possible ways that our planet, and life as we know it, could be destroyed by non-terrestrial natural events. This is definitely not light reading nor does it always perk you up, but it is funny, highly informative, and humbling. Plait's description of our solar system, galaxy, and universe help you to appreciate our position in the cosmos. But how do we survive? Here's how.

Plait covers a wide range of deadly outer space culprits in an attempt to show you just how powerful nature is. The list includes: gamma ray bursts from black holes, solar flares/coronal mass ejections, asteroid impact, comet impact, galactic collision (that's a slow death), and many others. Each chapter starts with a fun little 2-3 page story of humans observing these things from Earth, and they can be a bit scary. After that, the writing is filled with excellent science writing mixed with Plait's clever humor. You come away from this book with far more knowledge of nature than just what can kill us. Plait does an excellent job of explaining how so many different natural forces work, from gravity to chemistry to geology to quantum mechanics.

Here's the good news: most of these things are not going to kill us. The chances of gamma ray bursts or galactic collisions happening are slim. However, the two chapters that I enjoyed the most are actually the chapters the tell the story of our two most likely killers: solar radiation and asteroid/comet impacts.

Plait makes a great case near the end to increase funding towards protecting our planet against solar radiation and impacts from extra-terrestrial bodies like comets and asteroids. There are some great ideas, scientists, and programs out there that just need more funding to get their plans off the ground. A coronal mass ejection could wipe out our power grid and send us plunging into medieval times. It could even damage our ozone layer, which leads to huge long-term problems. And we all know what an asteroid or comet impact could do. The dinosaurs know all about that. But we can prevent these, the most likely problems, if we just work harder at it.

This was a fun, engaging read that I recommend to folks who enjoy a good science book, especially those of you who enjoy astronomy.(less)

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About Philip C. Plait

Philip Cary Plait, Ph.D. (aka "The Bad Astronomer") is a US astronomer, skeptic, writer and popular science blogger. He is a well known author and public figure in the fields of astronomy and science.

Platt gained his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Virginia in 1994. He began his career with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. His first foray into public life was with his blog that des...more

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Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"

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“I am using the word theory as a scientist means it: a set of ideas so well established by observations and physical models that it is essentially indistinguishable from fact. That is different from the colloquial use that means "guess." To a scientist, you can bet your life on a theory. Remember, gravity is "just a theory" too.” — 9 people liked it

“Science asymptotically approaches reality” — 4 people liked it

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