Why am I passionate about this?

In 2016 I was enjoying an early morning cup of coffee on my back porch in Arizona when an eerie red light lit up the dark sky, followed seconds later by a tremendous distant explosion that rattled my cup and set my dogs howling. As a soldier and journalist, I had seen all kinds of human and natural catastrophes and mayhem, but never anything like this. Later I was astonished to learn that this event, which was seen as far away as Texas, was caused by a small asteroid the size of a refrigerator that had exploded in the atmosphere with the energy equivalent of a million pounds of TNT. I wanted to find out more – and I did.


I wrote

Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth

By Gordon L. Dillow,

Book cover of Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth

What is my book about?

From its earliest formation our planet has been routinely bombarded by space rocks large and small. In fact, collisions between…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us

Gordon L. Dillow Why did I love this book?

The subtitle of this book says it all. As a planetary scientist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Yeomans’ job was to plot the courses of known and newly-discovered NEOs – that is, asteroids and comets that in space terms come close to Earth’s orbit – and determine if and when they might be on a collision course with our planet. With more than 25,000 known NEOs orbiting around up there, it’s not an easy task. But Yeomans makes the crucial point: it’s not the space rocks we know about that pose the biggest threat, but rather the thousands and thousands of large near-Earth asteroids we don’t know about that are the greatest danger. It’s not like the movie Armageddon; it would take years to develop a space mission to deflect or destroy an incoming asteroid, so it’s crucial that we find and track them – as Yeomans says, before they find us.

By Donald K. Yeomans,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Near-Earth Objects as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Of all the natural disasters that could befall us, only an Earth impact by a large comet or asteroid has the potential to end civilization in a single blow. Yet these near-Earth objects also offer tantalizing clues to our solar system's origins, and someday could even serve as stepping-stones for space exploration. In this book, Donald Yeomans introduces readers to the science of near-Earth objects--its history, applications, and ongoing quest to find near-Earth objects before they find us. In its course around the sun, the Earth passes through a veritable shooting gallery of millions of nearby comets and asteroids. One…


Book cover of Asteroid Hunters

Gordon L. Dillow Why did I love this book?

This book is about asteroid hunters, written by an asteroid hunter – and she clearly loves her work. Nugent is an assistant professor of computational physics and planetary science at Olin College and worked on NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), which discovered hundreds of Potential Hazardous Objects – asteroids and comets – that could someday threaten Earth. You don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy this book. Nugent patiently walks us through the process of finding and tracking potentially dangerous space rocks with skill and passion for her subject.

By Carrie Nugent,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Asteroid Hunters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dr Carrie Nugent is an asteroid hunter - one of the select group of scientists working diligently to map our cosmic neighbourhood. For the first time ever we are reaching the point where we may be able to prevent a natural disaster resulting from an asteroid collision. Nugent will delve into the impact asteroids have had in the past: the extinction of the dinosaurs, the earth-sized hole Shoemaker-Levy 9 left in Jupiter just a few years ago, how the surprise hit on Chelyabinsk in Russia could have started a war and unlucky Ms Anne Hodges - the only person (that…


Book cover of Asteroids: A History

Gordon L. Dillow Why did I love this book?

This book is an entertaining look at the history of mankind’s knowledge about asteroids, which began in 1801 with the discovery of the 600-mile wide asteroid Ceres. Today more than half a million asteroids in our Solar System have been identified, while billions more (mostly small ones) are still waiting to be discovered. The vast majority pose no threat to Earth, but they are fascinating anyway. There are asteroids shaped like giant dog bones, asteroids that resemble human skulls, asteroids that have smaller asteroids orbiting around them as they orbit around the sun. Peebles’ book tells you everything you need to know about these space rocks – and more things that you’ll want to know. A thoroughly enjoyable book.

By Curtis Peebles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Asteroids as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death - but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied. During the past two centuries, the quest for knowledge about asteroids has involved eminent scientists and amateur astronomers, patient research and sudden intuition, advanced technology and the simplest of telescopes, newspaper headlines and Cold War secrets. Today, researchers have named and identified the mineral composition of these objects. They range in size from 33 feet to 580 miles wide and most are found in a belt between…


Book cover of Impact Jupiter: The Crash of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Gordon L. Dillow Why did I love this book?

This book is the story of the biggest collision of space objects mankind has ever seen – literally – told by the man who saw it coming. In 1993 Levy was working with astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker at a mountain-top observatory in California when they spotted a comet that had been captured by Jupiter’s enormous gravity and sucked into orbit around the Solar System’s biggest planet. Levy and the Shoemakers predicted that pieces of the comet would soon strike Jupiter’s surface with almost unimaginable force – which prompted skepticism among some astronomers. But sure enough, in 1994 the comet fragments hit Jupiter’s surface with the collective force of a 50 million megaton bomb – thousands of times the energy of all the nuclear weapons on Earth. The event made us realize that if it could happen to Jupiter, it could happen to Earth – and that we’d better take the space rock threat seriously. It’s a dramatic story, and well told.

By David H. Levy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Impact Jupiter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An account of the discovery of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet and its spectacular collision with Jupiter, just 6 months later, written by one of the comet's discoverers.


Book cover of Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From the Asteroids, Comets and Planets

Gordon L. Dillow Why did I love this book?

This book is about the positive side of Near-Earth Objects – that is, they can benefit mankind as well as threaten it. Lewis explains how asteroids are chock full of valuable minerals – iron, nickel, platinum, iridium, and so on – that are either rare or difficult and messy to extract on Earth. Lewis persuasively argues that it’s not just possible but almost inevitable that Earthlings will eventually start extracting those space rock riches -- not so much to bring them back to Earth but to use them for manufacturing industries in space, thus sparing our planet from much of the pollution that threatens our world. It’s not just futuristic day-dreaming; already private companies are spending big money to develop space-mining technologies. The bottom line of this fascinating book is that there’s gold in them thar hills – or rather, in them thar far reaches of space. And sooner than you think, we’ll be out there looking for it.     

By John S. Lewis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mining the Sky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

While we worry over the depletion of the earth's natural resources, the pollution of our planet, and the challenges presented by the earth's growing population, billions of dollars worth of metals, fuels, and life-sustaining substances await us in nearby space. In this visionary book, noted planetary scientist John S. Lewis explains how we can mine these precious metals from the asteroids, comets, and planets in our own solar system for use in space construction projects. And this is just one of the possibilities. Join John S. Lewis as he contemplates milking the moons of Mars for water and hollowing out…


Explore my book 😀

Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth

By Gordon L. Dillow,

Book cover of Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth

What is my book about?

From its earliest formation our planet has been routinely bombarded by space rocks large and small. In fact, collisions between small asteroids and Earth are a daily occurrence. Fortunately, most of the small ones burn up in the atmosphere, and the big ones don’t come around very often. But the question isn’t if another large asteroid or comet will strike the Earth with catastrophic consequences -- the only question is when. It could be a thousand years from now, or it could be next Tuesday. Fire in the Sky takes an accessible and sometimes light-hearted look at the history of these space invaders -- including the six-mile wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago -- as well as the ongoing efforts to identify, and if possible deflect, large asteroids that may threaten our planet in the future.

Book cover of Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us
Book cover of Asteroid Hunters
Book cover of Asteroids: A History

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From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

By Ben Stanger,

Book cover of From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

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Ben Stanger Author Of From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

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Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Harvard- and MIT-trained physician-scientist, and I am drawn to research problems that bridge the basic and the practical – how a better understanding of cells and tissues can inform new therapies for cancer and other diseases. As children, we are all scientists – mini-hypothesis generators trying to make sense of the world. I suppose I never outgrew that curiosity. My list of best science books credits writers who bring to life the excitement that comes from looking at the natural world in a new way, a spirit that I try to emulate in my own writing. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!

Ben's book list on science written by scientists

What is my book about?

Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?

FROM ONE CELL is a dive inside the cell and its evolutionary prerogatives to explain how these "endless forms most beautiful," as Charles Darwin called them, come about. Along the way, we learn about the scientific process, filled as it is with serendipity, as the story is told through the eyes of the scientists who informed…

From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

By Ben Stanger,

What is this book about?

Every animal on Earth begins life as a single cell. From this humble origin, the nascent creature embarks on a risky journey fraught with opportunities for disaster-yet with astounding regularity, it reaches its destination intact. From One Cell illuminates this epic transformation-still one of nature's most mysterious feats-to show where we all come from and where we're going.

Through the eyes of the scientists unraveling the secrets of development, we see how all the information needed to build a human fits into a fertilised egg, and how the trillions of cells that emerge know what to become and where to…


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Interested in asteroids, outer space, and comet?

Asteroids 16 books
Outer Space 76 books
Comet 11 books