#111placesinspace — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #111placesinspace, aggregated by home.social.
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On the off-chance that you're a subscriber to @TheEconomist (as I am), you might be interested in listening to their latest Babbage podcast, hosted by Alok Jha, a journalist friend of mine since #Rosetta days 🚀🛰️☄️
The pretext for our conversation was my book, "111 Places in Space That You Must Not Miss", but if I recall the pre-Christmas recording well, we touched on many wider space-related topics too ✨🪐🌔🧑🚀
#111PlacesInSpace #Space #SpaceScience
https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2026/01/07/mark-mccaughrean-the-astronomers-guide-to-the-cosmos
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A little more publicity for my book, #111PlacesInSpace, thanks to my friend Alok Jha, science & technology editor at @TheEconomist 🙇♂️
We recorded an interview for a future edition of their Babbage podcast this evening, & a very enjoyable chat it was too, covering some of the book's destinations, & a little space politics.
Alok & I first met around the Rosetta mission in 2014, & it's always a pleasure to talk with him. Plus I subscribe to The Economist, so it's a good fit 🙂
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It's that time of year, when Stage 0 ("just ignore it – it's ages away 🤷♂️") has turned to Stage 1 ("oh, if I must, but what? 🤨") 🎄🎅
So, here's a self-serving suggestion to help you avoid Stage 2 ("aaarrrggghhh 😱"):
Available in real shops & online ✅
Compact, easily wrapped form ✅
Not cheap, but not too expensive ✅
Short chapters for a short attention span world ✅
Make two people very happy (one of them me; thank you 🙇♂️) ✅
SPAAAAAAAACE! 🚀🛰️🔭👩🚀🌚🌞🪐💫✨
ISBN 978-3-7408-0601-9
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Well, that’s a new experience 😵💫
My first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair, spanning many huge exhibition halls & packed with vast numbers of public visitors. Overwhelming 🙀
My publishers, Emons Verlag, invited me for a talk about my book, along with journalist Martin Nusch, who has written one about 111 places to see on / connected to the Moon.
Lovely to meet the team & we sold & signed a few books too 👍
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Sorry, I haven't been keeping up 🤷♂️
While I was in Portugal last week, my friends Sue Nelson & Richard Hollingham published their latest Space Boffins podcast, including me talking about my book (again 🙂).
The word "boffin" & the associated "astroboffin" are peculiarly British, popularised during WW2.
Apparently the Institute of Physics believe its use puts youngsters off doing science & engineering, but I've always been proud of being a "boffin" 👨🔬
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Time this Sunday morning for a walk with friends along the Tagus through the Parque do Nações in Lisbon, the site of Expo ‘98, to the Vasco de Gama bridge 🌉
And grilled fish for lunch one more time before heading home for some welcome cooler air & rain – what can I say, I’m a Celt 🤷♂️🙂
Obrigado, Portugal – see you soon again, I hope 🇵🇹🙇♂️
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Thank you very much to everyone who came to my talk at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento in Lisbon yesterday, & to my very kind friends who organised it, most of all my former PhD student, Cátia Cardoso 🇵🇹🙇♂️
It was a whistle stop tour through some of the locations in my book “111 Places in Space That You Must Not Miss”, & just for you Mr Amos, the slide count was 120 🙂
We had some excellent fish too 🐠
A few pictures from this Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZcGUsCLCA/?img_index=9&igsh=MTJiOXE1bmhxZTlrbw==
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A busy but pleasant day in & around Lisbon 🇵🇹
Several hours of interviews, photos, social media stuff, & tech check at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento science centre ahead of my public talk tomorrow on my #111PlacesInSpace book for World Space Week.
Then over the Vasco de Gama bridge to the seaside town of Sesimbra for a very late lunch, Setubal to watch the sunset, & back to Lisbon via the 25 April bridge for an equally late dinner.
All with very good friends & #scicomm colleagues 🙇♂️
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A silver lining to my train delay is a longer connection in Mannheim, giving me some bookshop time 📚
No sign of my book itself, but I did find a short but nice review in the popular astronomy magazine “Sterne und Weltraum” 🔭✨
Thanks to the editor, Andreas Müller, for picking it up & @mpi_astro masters student Vito Aberham for the review 🙇♂️
p.s. While my book wasn’t there, as a Baden-Württemberg resident, I was tempted by another from my publisher 🙂🍻
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Took these to Dénia in Spain 🇪🇸, & they all stayed there – thanks to those who came to my Rosetta talk, & who kindly bought the books afterwards 🙇♂️
And thanks to Christine & David Ord of the Costa Blanca Astronomy Society for the invitation, & the nice evening in town yesterday.
Next stop Lisbon later this week for another public talk at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento 🇵🇹
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If you have a penchant for podcasts, you might want to take a listen to the latest one on Planetary Radio, from the fine folk at The Planetary Society 📻
I had a great chat with the lovely Sarah Al-Ahmed about my book "111 Places in Space That You Must Not Miss", & much else 📖
The podcast is available on their website, & as a reminder, the book itself is now on sale in Europe, the UK, & North America 🙇♂️
https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2025-111-places-in-space
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Time for a brief book update, ahead of publication in the US next week 📖
I'll be talking about it at various events in Europe this autumn, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, the ESA ESOC & ESTEC Open Days, & at talks in Spain & Portugal.
I won't be able to carry many copies to all those events, so I've made stickers I can sign for interested folk, & which they can put inside if they buy one online. Instructions on where to buy are on the peelable backside.
Thoughts? 🧐
#111PlacesInSpace 🚀🛰️🪐✨
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Spanning the political spectrum of newspapers here in Germany, my book was covered by @DerSpiegel earlier this week in the online & print editions, & this evening, it's also featured by BILD Online.
Hey, I don't make the rules ... 🤷♂️🙂
You can read the latter at the link below, if you're willing to negotiate the fearsome cookie requirements. I recommend a VPN & private window in Firefox 😬✌️
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Umm, sorry for the endless & doubtless tiresome trumpet blowing, but, err, I'm a little stunned by these screenshots from Amazon.de 🙀
I mean, my book is in English & hasn't even been translated to German yet – wow 😱
But Danke schön to everyone who has bought it, & very likely also to @chs42 for his @DerSpiegel interview 👍
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As seen in the wild today in two of Edinburgh's largest bookshops 📚🙂👍
Whether or not my daughter took it upon herself to rearrange the shelves to give my book a little more prominence will just have to remain a mystery, won't it? 🤫
Besides, a boring alphabetical ordering would put me close to the Harvard Professor & his "it's always aliens" cobblers, & we wouldn't want that now, would we? 🖖😬🤘
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Hot pictures for a hot afternoon 🥵
Most of the images in my book, "111 Places in Space That You Must Not Miss", came from space agencies & observatories, as well as talented archive image processors & amateur astronomers, most released with CC licences.
But I made quite a few too, also processing archival data, from my JWST observations, or from my back garden.
I've made them all available with CC BY-SA licences here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCbdAn -
“So, hands up who thinks Mark’s new book is groovy?” 👋
Thank you very much to ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher, for his enthusiastic endorsement of “111 Places in Space You Must Not Miss” at the Paris Air Show today, publication day 🙂
(Truth be told, he was actually speaking after my talk & asking which of the kids in the audience would like to be an astronaut, but the picture taken by Karen O’Flaherty was too perfect not to use 🤪)
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Just two days now until my book, "111 Places in Space You Must Not Miss" is published in Europe 🎉
As you might have guessed, there are 111 mini-chapters, each comprising around 350 words of text & a full-page image describing somewhere interesting in space 🪐🧐
Here are all 111 of those images ... well, at least a central 20 pixel wide strip of each one 🤪
Europe: 19 Jun
UK: 21 Jul
US: 2 SepAvailable from all the usual places and:
https://emons-verlag.de/p/111-places-in-space-that-you-must-not-miss-7517 -
“Mister McFly! Mister McFly! This just arrived. (Oh, hi, Marty.) I think it’s your new book!”
Had to be done … sorry/not sorry 🤷♂️🤪
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The universe has delivered on this fine #Caturday ✨😻
Or more correctly, the DHL man has delivered. But then he’s made of atoms & molecules made during the Big Bang, in the hearts & winds of stars, in supernovae, & in neutron star mergers, so it’s pretty much the same thing 🤷♂️
And since Tigger is a dedicatee of my book, it’s only fitting that he gets to read it first 😸
Official publication date is 19 June, but evidently it’s out in the wild already 🥳