VJOURNAL SMART BOOK · Volume II · Earth and space
Everything about everything
Why volcanoes erupt, the ground shakes, storms spin, the sky glows and black holes bend time. Six chapters with living 3D pictures.
Start readingVolume I asked what a person feels in the sea, on a mountain and in orbit. Volume II steps back and looks at the planet itself, and then at the sky above it. What is happening a few kilometres under our feet when a volcano wakes up? Why does the ground shake? How does a storm gather its strength? Why does the night sky sometimes glow green, and what is the Sun made of? And what is left when a giant star dies?
Every chapter has five moments. Next to the text there is a living 3D picture, and below it a sandbox where you change one number and watch the others follow. Each chapter ends with three facts, a short quiz and sources you can open. Estimates and debated ideas are marked as such, and safety advice is only the general kind that official services give.
Contents
- 01VolcanoesFrom the centre of the Earth to the crater, 6,371 kmDeep under our feet the rock is so hot that some of it melts. This melted rock, called magma, is lighter than the rock around it, so it rises. When it reaches the surface and the gas in it breaks free, we get a volcano.
- 02EarthquakesPlates that move a few centimetres a yearThe outer shell of the Earth is cracked into big slabs called plates. They creep very slowly, but sometimes they stick, and then they slip all at once. That sudden slip is an earthquake.
- 03Hurricanes and tornadoesFrom warm seas to a funnel of windA hurricane is a giant spinning storm that lives on warm sea water. A tornado is a much smaller and faster funnel that comes from a thundercloud. Both are measured by how fast their wind blows.
- 04The auroraFrom the Sun to the sky at 100–300 kmThe Sun blows a stream of tiny particles into space. When they meet Earth's magnetic field, some of them are guided to the poles, where they hit the air and make it glow. That glow is the aurora.
- 05The SunBorn 4.6 billion years ago, shining for 5 billion moreThe Sun is a huge ball of gas that makes light and heat by turning hydrogen into helium in its centre. It is a star, an ordinary one, and it has been shining for 4.6 billion years.
- 06Black holesFrom a collapsing star to a ripple in space-timeA black hole is a place where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. It is not a hole, it is a very heavy object squeezed into a very small space.
What follows
- Dinosaurs and the age of reptilesBeing written
- Sleep and dreamsBeing written
- The deep seaBeing written
- How weather is forecastBeing written
VITON13 LAB
Keep studying on the LAB table
Open the chapter's experiment, timeline or map on VITON13 LAB, with your notes as a document beside it.
Open VITON13 LABAbout this book
What is in Volume II of Everything about everything?
Six chapters about the planet and the sky: volcanoes, earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes and tornadoes, the aurora, the Sun, and black holes. Each one has a living 3D picture, a short text with real numbers, a worked example and a sandbox that lets you change the numbers yourself.
Do I need Volume I first?
No. Each chapter starts from a simple question and explains everything it needs. Volume I is about the human body meeting the forces of nature, and Volume II is about the forces themselves, so the two books can be read in any order.
Is the safety advice in the book enough to protect me?
It repeats only the general advice that official services publish, for example to take cover during strong shaking or to leave when authorities order an evacuation. For your own region, follow your local emergency service, which knows the local risks and the local rules.
Are the numbers in the book exact?
Where a value is measured, such as the speed of light or the size of the Sun, it is given exactly or rounded. Where scientists only estimate, for example the temperature at the centre of the Earth or the age of Pangaea, the text says so and gives the range.