Fire in the Sky, Gordon L. Dillow
Fire in the Sky, Gordon L. Dillow
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

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

Author: Gordon L. Dillow

Narrator: Edward Bauer

Unabridged: 8 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/04/2019


Synopsis

This “accessible and always entertaining” (Booklist) combination of history, pop science, and in-depth reporting offers a fascinating account of the asteroids that hit Earth long ago and those streaming toward us now, as well as how prepared we are against asteroid-caused catastrophe.

One of these days, warns Gordon Dillow, the Earth will be hit by a comet or asteroid of potentially catastrophic size. The only question is when. In the meantime, we need to get much better at finding objects hurtling our way, and if they’re large enough to penetrate the atmosphere without burning up, figure out what to do about them.

We owe many of science’s most important discoveries to the famed Meteor Crater, a mile-wide dimple on the Colorado Plateau created by an asteroid hit 50,000 years ago. In his masterfully researched Fire in the Sky, Dillow unpacks what the Crater has to tell us. Prior to the early 1900s, the world believed that all craters—on the Earth and Moon—were formed by volcanic activity. Not so. The revelation that Meteor Crater and others like it were formed by impacts with space objects has led to a now accepted theory about what killed off the dinosaurs, and it has opened up a new field of asteroid observation that is brimming with urgency. Dillow looks at great asteroid hits of the past and modern-day asteroid hunters and defense planning experts, including America’s first Planetary Defense Officer.

Satellite sensors confirm that a Hiroshima-scale blast occurs in the atmosphere every year, and a smaller, one-kiloton blast every month. While Dillow makes clear that the objects above can be deadly, he consistently inspires awe with his descriptions of their size, makeup, and origins. Both a riveting work of popular science and a warning to not take for granted the space objects hurtling overhead, Fire in the Sky is, ultimately, a testament to our universe’s celestial wonders.

About Gordon L. Dillow

Gordon Dillow has been a reporter, columnist, and war correspondent for more than thirty years. He has written for a number of newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, and is the author or coauthor of numerous books. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Yun

What if an asteroid were on a collision course with Earth? Would we have what it takes to defend ourselves, or would we be powerless in the face of this cosmic blip? Fire in the Sky takes a look into the history and science of asteroids and comets, distilling down all that we know of these celestial......more

Goodreads review by Sumit

A popular theme in the movies is that of an incoming asteroid that could extinguish life on the planet, and our heroes are launched into space to blow it up. (think Armageddon or Deep Impact). The idea of an asteroid or comet impacting with planet Earth and causing a catastrophe is still treated as......more

A fun research into everything travelling the sky and beyond: from pop-culture disaster scenarios to space exploration and Earth planetary history.......more

Goodreads review by Clay

The book cover looks someone dropped red paint on it and then smudged it.......more

Goodreads review by Julie

Stories about an asteroid striking the earth and causing complete destruction have been popular for decades now. Not to mention documentaries, podcast episodes, youtube videos..... It's ingrained in pop culture that someday the Earth will be struck by a gigantic rock from space, and life as we know......more