Blog

I’m so excited that my new StarTalk episode is out on YouTube (and as a podcast). This is my 12th StarTalk appearance!! I can’t believe it myself but there you go. It’s certainly nice to be invited back so often, especially when I get to chat about space volcanoes! It was lots of fun chatting with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Matt Kirshen and answering questions sent in by StarTalk fans.

I was lucky to get the opportunity to chat to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Matt Kirschen for a new StarTalk episode about space volcanoes and my new book Fire & Ice. You can have a listen to the podcast above, with more information on this link.

I am so excited to announce that my book Fire and Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System is out this week!! Pre-orders are open now, and some are already being shipped. You can currently only find the hardback and ebook but I recorded the audiobook last month and it will be available later this week.

Here’s some links to buy a copy: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Bloomsbury, Bookshop, Blackwells (which is currently a great price).

I’ve already had some amazing reviews coming in from New Scientist, BBC The Sky At Night as well as Goodreads. It’s such a joy to know my book is out there and people are enjoying it, and learning about a less well known area of space science, that is, space volcanoes! I also saw a lovely write-up about my work and writing in The Sunday Post this weekend, see below.

I’m very excited to announce some upcoming talks for the launch of my next book Fire & Ice.

The first will be to the Smithsonian Associates in Washington DC, although I’ll be delivering this online. It’s on Tuesday 29th September 2021 at 12pm (ET), 5pm BST. You can get tickets here. This is US publication day!

The next is on Thursday 30th September to the Royal Institution, also online. You can get tickets here. This is UK publication day!

Then I’ve been invited to speak to the lovely people of Ely as part of an author event for Toppings Company and Booksellers on Friday October 15th. This is a live in-person event and I can’t wait to step away from my home office for that! You can get tickets for that one here.

I’ll also be doing Norwich Science Festival on Friday October 29th, hopefully in-person!! More details to come soon for that one.

Last week was very exciting because my author copies of Fire & Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System arrived. Charlie and I were very excited to open the parcel as this is the first time we’ve seen the finished printed hardback version of the book, including all the amazing quotes from people on the cover! It’s available for pre-order now from wherever you normally get your books. It’s out Sept 28th in the US and Sept 30th in the UK.

I was very excited to be invited to speak to Kay Burley on the Sky News breakfast show on Tuesday July 20th for the buildup to the launch of the Blue Origin capsule into space. Onboard were Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark, along with a young man Oliver who paid for a seat on the flight (interestingly, the person who got the winning bid of $28 million for that seat has postponed their flight because of ‘scheduling difficulties’), but I was most excited to see Wally Funk there too. She has now become the oldest astronaut, at 82, surpassing the previous record of John Glenn who went to the ISS aged 77. This is especially exciting because Wally trained alongside John back in the 1960s when NASA were figuring out who to send into space first. Despite Wally, and many other women as part of the ‘Mercury 13’, passing all the same tests as the men, NASA decided that they would cancel the women’s programme, and the rest is history, as they say. American women didn’t go into space until much later, but of course the Soviets sent Valentina Tereshkova in 1963! So it’s just amazing to see Wally complete her flight now, all these years later, and finally beat John at something again. (It’s well known that she performed better than him at some of the tests they had to complete at NASA). Anyway, congratulations to everyone at Blue Origin, it was a fantastic event to watch.

Booking is now live for my talk on Sept 28th 12-1:15pm ET to the Smithsonian Associates. The link for tickets is here. This will be the first time I’ve given the talk and it happens to be US publication day too, so lots of celebration needed and lots of nerves too!

I was so excited to receive my advance copies of Fire & Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System in the post this week! Being able to hold a physical copy of my book is such a wonderful feeling. These have gone out to review with various people including space scientists, volcanologists and TV personalities and I have already had a few lovely endorsements back in. I can’t believe my book is getting out into the world now, and of course, available for pre-order for everyone else too!

Pre-order Fire & Ice here. Release date Sept 2021

I was privileged to get the opportunity to chat with some of The Open University’s meteorite experts about the recent news concerning the recovery of the Winchcombe meteorite, the first UK meteorite in 3o years. This is a very exciting time for space scientists and my colleague Richard Greenwood who is on this call, was the first scientist on the scene, confirming that the rock found in the village of Winchcombe was indeed a meteorite. It is a carbonaceous chondrite, which are relatively rare in our collections on Earth, and is thought to have originated from as asteroid towards the outer edge of the asteroid belt, nearer to Jupiter. PhD student Ross Findlay, who is also on the call, joined us from the oxygen isotope lab at The Open University in Milton Keynes where he was analysing some of the rock samples at the time.

Interestingly, the Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx missions went to sample asteroids that are very similar in composition to this one, with Hayabusa2 already having returned with its samples and OSIRIS-REx on its way home. But then the cosmos likes to play games with us and so it sent us a free sample of another one just for fun. No bother, say the scientists, they’re just happy to have any sample at all and having three separate ones is certainly no problem.