The Ultimate* Cheat Sheet for Astrophysics Students

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At some point during my undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics, with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing) I thought, "wouldn't it be cool if I collected all the physics and maths formulae I've learnt into a notebook?" This became three notebooks, then, when I realised how untidy they were getting, a LaTeX document. In the hope that others might find it useful, I decided to put it up here. Three years after it began, here it is!

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Empty Nest

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The last boxes are taped up, the rooms are empty, and the walls are bare. The sharp, stale smell of a decade and a half’s worth of accumulated dust hangs in the air.
“Jason?” Mum calls. “Can you take Daisy for a walk before the truck gets here?”

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Before the Eagle

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Far below, Prometheus faced his brother Atlas across the mountain path. The battle raged around them. Smoke and ozone stung the air, carried against the two siblings by the whipping wind. Shock and anger burned in Atlas's eyes. And there was something else there.
Ah, right, Prometheus thought glumly. Betrayal.

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Dubious Honour - Part 2

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Elya continued to fly the Supernought as they fled back to the bridge, which was not an easy journey given that his suit's jets, and several of Delton's bones, were broken. The ship was accelerating at full power now, away from the nucleus-forsaken rock behind them. Without the ship's inertial muffling, they would have been no more than red stains on the rear walls; even with it they were struggling to move against the acceleration.

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Dubious Honour - Part 1

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The dead ship hung in space, spinning slowly. With active surfaces disabled, its hull mirrored the distant stars perfectly. Even without stealth measures it was visible only by the constellations it altered as it passed before them, blotting out stars and replacing them with new ones. As it turned, however, the craft’s interior became visible, exposed by jagged sections of missing hull.  There were no sparking cables, no vapours leaking from smashed pipes. Just a broken eggshell.
       From the launch bay of the SDU Dubious Honour, Delton watched the incongruous opening draw closer as the Semartus ship matched the Supernought’s velocity. She floated in the airlock with a dozen other crewmembers, both Darax and Semartus, vacuum suits ready and sealed.

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