At a time when rovers are exploring Mars, a satellite is looping around Saturn's rings and a body larger than Pluto was recently found in the far reaches of the solar system, the reader who wants to catch up on developments could have done with a book of more uniform quality.
Fusa Miyake discovered Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10 traces in tree rings from the era, which point to a gamma ray burst from a celestial body other than the Sun.