Who is Stuart Clark?

Stuart Clark is one of the UK’s most widely read astronomy journalists. His career is devoted to presenting the complex world of astronomy to the general public. Stuart holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a former editor of Astronomy Now, the UK’s biggest selling astronomy magazine. Currently he writes mostly for the European Space Agency, New Scientist, BBC Focus and some of the UK research councils. Stuart is a Visiting Fellow of the University of Hertfordshire, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers.

On 9 August 2000, UK daily newspaper The Independent placed him alongside Stephen Hawking and the Astronomer Royal, Professor Sir Martin Rees, as one of the ‘stars’ of British astrophysics teaching.

Until 2001, Stuart was the Director of Public Astronomy Education at the University of Hertfordshire. There he taught undergraduates, postgraduates and the general public, whilst researching star formation, planetary habitability and the origins of life. In a paper published by Science in 1998, he helped develop the current paradigm that the left-handed amino acids necessary for the origin of life on Earth were synthesized in star-forming regions spread throughout the Galaxy.

In 2001, Stuart decided to increase his part-time writing to a full-time occupation. Having crossed from mainstream science into science journalism, he now spends his working life translating astronomy, space research and physics into comprehensible language for the general public.

Stuart’s latest book is Deep Space from Quercus Books.  It is a huge picture book that takes the readers into the further reaches of space and time to explain in every day language how the Universe evolved from the Big bang into the amazing cosmos we see around us today.  Upon publication, it was chosen by UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s as their non-fiction book of the month.

The Sun Kings, his previous book, is for the general reader. This book recounts the true story of a phenomenally powerful solar explosion that hit the Earth in 1859 and paints the picture of the Victorians who witnessed the awesome event.

Thirteen other of Stuart’s books have been published to date, selling more than 200,000 worldwide and three of which he subsequently updated for second editions. Universe in Focus: The Story of the Hubble Telescope (Barnes and Noble, 1997) sold over 100,000 copies. One of his children’s books, Journey to the Stars (Oxford University Press, 2000), has sold over 50,000 copies and was OUP’s lead title for the 2001 Bologna Book Fair.  It is still in print.  His books have been translated into eight languages so far – German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Swedish and Danish. Stuart has made contributions to six other published books.

In addition to his work for New Scientist, BBC Focus and Astronomy Now, Stuart has written many articles for, The Economist, The Times Higher Education Supplement, Daily Express and Sky and Telescope amongst others. He co-wrote the script for a DVD about the Hubble telescope. His numerous television and radio contributions include BBC’s Tomorrow’s World and Nine O’clock News, and Channel 4’s Big Breakfast. He frequently lectures to the public up and down the UK.