Outer space, used with its modern meaning, appears as early as the 1840s in a poem by Emmeline Stuart-Wortley. Soon after, Alexander von Humboldt was using variations on it in his writings about the cosmos. By 1901, H.G. Wells was using outer space...
Need a book to lift you out of this world? Try Orbital (Bookshop|Amazon). In it, Booker-winning novelist Samantha Harvey imagines the moment-to-moment experience of living on a space station, a mixture of the mundane and the majestic, 250 miles...
The archaic English word ruelle means “the space between a bed and the wall.” It’s adapted from French ruelle meaning “a small alley or lane.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ruelle, Meaning the...
You can’t help wondering if some astronomers listen to rock music as they gaze at the stars, given that a couple of names in The Dictionary of Minor Planet Names(Amazon) honor the band Yes and also Procol Harum. This is part of a complete...
Matt from Waukesha, Wisconsin, has been discussing the words barely and nearly with his 10-year-old son Simon. They know the two words are nearly alike, but how exactly? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Barely and...
Martha recommends The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) (Bookshop|Amazon) by Katie Mack, an assistant professor of physics at North Carolina State University. It’s a challenging read, but accessible enough to lay readers to provide...
