Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries: ...And Other Amazing Cosmic Facts

An offbeat guided tour of the Universe, focusing on weird and wonderful facts. Astrophysicist Dr Jillian Scudder knows more than most of us what a surreal place the Universe can be. In this light-hearted book she delves into some of the more arcane facts that her work has revealed, and tells us how we have actually managed to discover these amazing truths. Did you know: the galaxy is flatter than a credit card; supermassive black holes can sing a super-low B flat; it rains iron on a brown dwarf, and diamonds on Neptune; you could grow turnips on Mars if its soil weren't full of rocket fuel; the Universe is beige, on average; Jupiter's magnetic field will short-circuit your spacecraft - and, of course, the Milky Way smells of rum and raspberries. AUTHOR: Dr Jillian Scudder is an astrophysicist and associate professor of Physics & Astronomy at Oberlin College, Ohio, and the author of Astroquizzical: A Beginner's Journey Through the Cosmos (Icon, 2019). She has been writing about space for a general audience since 2013, with her work published in Forbes, Quartz, The Independent, and The Conversation, among others.