The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries

Book excerpt: 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 sheet of paper; 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.