SCIENCES

Out of This World and Into the Next: A Physicist’s Guide to Space Exploration

by Adriana Marais
Pegasus. May 2025. 288p. ISBN 9781639368815. $28.95. SCI
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This beautiful, beginner-friendly guide to physics and space exploration opens with theoretical physicist Marais’s (director, the Foundation for Space Development Africa) sense of wonder, which she shares and expounds on with each chapter. The author takes core concepts that make us human (e.g., a desire for belonging) and shows how these innate human urges have driven massive intellectual efforts. She takes readers both backward and forward in time, with deep dives into the very origins of the universe and so much more. Marais makes concepts such as dark matter (so common yet still misunderstood in our cultural lexicon) accessible without seeming reductive or patronizing, as is too often the case when scientists take on the difficult work of being science communicators.
VERDICT For readers wondering what it means for humanity to be both made of stardust and reaching for galaxies far beyond us, this book will provide history and science in a deeply personal, relevant way, sure to inspire flights of fancy and of facts.
Reviewed by Emily Bowles , Apr 01, 2025
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