The Universe at Midnight: Observations Illuminating the Cosmos

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, 2002 - Science - 352 pages
From the internationally acclaimed author of Magnificent Universe, Ken Croswell, comes the definitive story of the golden age in our understanding of the universe -- the age we live in right now. The universe's origin, evolution, and fate have long fascinated humanity, but until recently these subjects resided in astronomy's never-never land. The last ten years, however, have witnessed a stunning turnabout: an avalanche of new cosmological discoveries that illuminate the greatest questions of all. The Universe at Midnight is a platform from which to observe these new deep-space landmarks. Mammoth new telescopes on Earth, such as the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and Japan's Subaru Telescope, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope overhead, are probing the frontiers of the universe with stunning results. In 1996 astronomers pinpointed the center of the elusive "Great Attractor, " a mass of galaxies 250 million light-years away that is trying to tug our Galaxy andthousands of others across the universe. In late 1997, two teams hunting supernovae in galaxies billions of light-years away shocked their colle

From inside the book

Contents

High Midnight
1
In The Dark
4
Galaxies Beyond
15
Big Bang Battles
36
The Big Bang For Beginners
65
Dark Matters
89
Ashes Of Creation
104
Universe In Hyperdrive
118
The Constant Hubble War
172
Omega The Weight Of The Universe
203
Lambda Einsteins Curse
211
The Future Of The Universe
230
Glossary
264
Notes
282
Bibliography
296
Credits
326

The Architecture Of The Cosmos
130
Ripples In Space
148
Machos Versus Wimps
160
Index
327
About The Author
339
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 302 - EDGE, DO, SHAKESHAFT, JR, MCADAM, WB, BALDWIN, JE, and ARCHER, S., 1959, Mem.

Bibliographic information