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NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute are offering free e-books about space telescopes.
Free books from NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope's science team and the European Space Agency bring Earth and the heavens to life — as long as you have an iPad, and the patience to wait for a longish download.
Even if you have a regular old computer, you can still download the books about Hubble and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, as PDF files. But you'll miss out on all the interactive features.
Those two books were unveiled today by the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, which takes care of the science programming for the two NASA-funded telescopes. They're joining the ESA's first iBook, "Earth From Space: The Living Beauty," on my iPad bookshelf.
The Hubble book guides you through scores of pictures from the world's most famous space telescope, organized into categories ranging from cosmology to planetary science. There's also a chapter on the telescope itself, with a 3-D model and a diagram you can tap on to learn about all the components. (Our Flash interactive about Hubble takes a similar approach.) When you tally up all the interactives, videos and picture galleries, the content adds up to a lot more than the 84 pages on the screen.
NASA / STScI
The iBooks are crammed with cosmic images.
The 74-page e-book about the Webb telescope uses a similar approach to explain the science behind the $8.8 billion observatory, which is currently scheduled for launch in 2018. There aren't any pictures from the Webb, of course, but the book's interactives, videos and photo galleries explain how the telescope will observe the cosmic frontiers in infrared wavelengths.
"These new e-books from NASA will allow people to discover Hubble and Webb in a whole new way — both the science and the technology behind building them," Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist on the Webb telescope project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in today's news release. "They collect all of the amazing resources about these two observatories in an excellent product that I think people will really enjoy."
While the NASA iBooks look outward, ESA's iBook looks back toward Earth, incorporating stunning images from Europe's Earth-observing satellites. The 104 pages cover our planet from the core to the cryosphere, from the oceans to the wilderness. You can set color-coded virtual globes spinning with a brush of your fingertip.
ESA
"Earth From Space" is the European Space Agency's first iBook.
"By turning the virtual pages of this iBook you will discover how some of the latest technology has changed the way we see Earth," Volker Liebig, director of ESA's Earth observation programs, said in the space agency's publication announcement. "So, it was time to bring these ‘scientific voyages’ to you in a dynamic way. I believe that electronic media hold a huge potential, just like satellite technology. They help you to discover the scientific world of spaceflight."
While the Hubble and Webb e-books are downloadable via Apple's iBookstore, you download "Earth From Space" directly from ESA's website and follow the instructions. You'll need to be patient: Each book packs in hundreds of megabytes' worth of data, so the download can take as long as 20 minutes over a home broadband connection. There were times when I wondered whether it'd ever finish. But if you're a fan of space imagery, these books are well worth the wait — especially when you consider that they're free.
More space imagery:
- 2012: The Year in Space
- Space slideshow gallery
- App lets you take the planet's pulse
- 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Are you bullshi**ing me? No android version for tablets. Stop catering to the Apple walled garden. I dropped my Wired Magazine subscription because they only offer an ipad version. Your missing a substantial number of people with Android tablets and readers.
Distribution of these books in a proprietary, captive format, benefits only purchasers of Apple products (as well as Apple itself), and is wrong on many levels. There are many open-source ebook formats that could've been used, making the books available on Apple products as well as tablets and other computers using Android and even Microsoft Windows. And it certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Space Act of 1958, which clearly states that data gathered by NASA and NASA-sponsored missions, must be in the public domain and freely available to everyone.
I'm with John and R. I have a Kindle. I'll never see these.
What is it with these people that they think that iPad is the only platform on the market? They are the ones that make these fads start, and they perpetuate them.
I'll never own an Apple product, for this very reason. Exclusivity is not what promotes academic development.
Thank your for your intelligent replies. I had assumed that the Apple Fanboys would be trolling by now!
I just clicked on the ebook link above in the article and left a comment about Android tablets through their "Contact us" page. If enough people contact them maybe the will wake up.
Please pass along anything you hear about other versions of the e-book, and I'll try to follow up. I second John's observations about the intelligent replies. Thanks, folks.
I knew before I clicked on the link that it was iOnly. Celestron has a telescope app that is also iOnly, which pissed me off since I own a Celestron. Maybe one day for us Android users as it sounds like a nice book to have.
how sad ... my dad developed gyroscopic navigation for the space program ... i can't see fruits from the labors of the untold many who've contributed to our knowledge of the universe because i haven't aligned with a particular source provider ... how very sad that development and dispersal of this knowledge is so very narrowly held.
PDF supports interactive content an can be read on almost every platform in existence. For example, I have several interactive manuals for ConTeXt (a document typesetting/formatting system) and it's not that difficult. Interactions can be simple (bookmarks, URIs &c.) or complex in JavaScript which is nearly universal on the web.
ibid to all...nice of the author to chime in, too.
On another note... waiting 20 mins for a download to finish and wondering if it ever would...
...sort of reminds me of the time I upgraded my 33.6 modem to 56K before the end of the last century. I was flyin' then. Only took about twelve hours to upgrade IE, of all things. But, oh, the cost :-)
Nasa you need to expand your horizons. The Ipad is not the only game in town.
I agree with Alan John and Eric.... It's not NASA per-say but the marketing arm of Apple... NASA just looked at "How do we get the word out fastest." I doubt seriously if they thought about multi-platforms and the like. Their PR arm need serious overhaul.
How ironic that books such as these are from a product whose leader (Steve Jobs) once said, "“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” And we want to fill our classroom with the mentality of Apple that still persists today? Shame on Science for not making the books available to all platforms.
Quote from NYTimes interview
Something that caught my eye... There are over 350 million Android devices in use worldwide.
http://sociable.co/mobile/android-census-how-big-is-the-global-android-population/
The figures from Jan. 05, 2012 showed 220 million, so my figure is a conservative guesstimate, given the 700,000 devices activated per day. And even Amazon says that the Kindle Fire is the single most popular sale on their site, with some 4 million of them purchased in December 2011. I shudder to think how many were sold this year, and this month.
Come on, as well known as Mr. Boyle is, and as intelligent as we, his readers are, surely we all together can mount a drive to convince NASA to at least acknowledge us!
I wrote them politely, suggesting that we Android users were being left out, when could we expect a version for us, and was told "there are no plans to expand the publication" of these books, thanks for asking so go away!
Mr. Boyle, what say you? Would you take up this cause?