Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . . by Philip C. Plait

Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . . by Philip C. Plait

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
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 perspective.

One statistic that surprised me was the chance of dying in an asteroid impact, which at 1 in 700,000 is somewhat greater than the chance of dying from a terrorist attack. Given the billions that we are prepared to spend on the rather nebulous threats from international terrorism, perhaps we would get a better return on our money by spending some of it on programmes to monitor and plan for the threat of asteroid impacts and coronal mass ejections?

This is excellent popular science, and highly recommended. Keep watching the skies!

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