Heaven's Touch: From Killer Stars to the Seeds of Life, How We Are Connected to the Universe

"Jim Kaler, who has passionately and expertly described the stars and their vagaries, now brings the whole Universe--from the tides through hypernovae and gamma-ray bursts--to general readers. His writing is not only clear and straightforward but also correct and up to date, addressing both standard topics and the latest astronomical goodies."--Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams College"Heaven's Touchexamines the physical effects of gravity, radiation, solar storms, asteroid and comet impacts, cosmic rays, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts on our home planet. Its conclusions are significant: our planet does not exist in isolation but rather is part of a complex planetary, stellar, and galactic system whose influences are profound. I found myself propelled along in the reading."--J. Michael Shull, University of Colorado at Boulder"Heaven's Touchpresents the diverse ways that astronomical objects affect the Earth and humans, beyond their visual appearance in the sky. Kaler is a senior astronomer with an excellent reputation as a researcher, educator, and author. There is a lot of good material here that has not featured in very many popular astronomy books."--Chris Impey, author ofThe Living Cosmos"Heaven's Touchcontains much of interest that should be informative and engaging to readers."--Donald Brownlee, coauthor ofRare EarthKaler, James B. is the author of 'Heaven's Touch: From Killer Stars to the Seeds of Life, How We Are Connected to the Universe', published 2009 under ISBN 9780691129464 and ISBN 0691129460.