Wonders of the Universe
Recommended for viewing on a colour tablet.Professor Brian Cox is back with another insightful and mind-blowing exploration of space. This time he shows us our universe as we've never seen it before.13.7 billion years old. 93 billion light years wide. It contains over 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. This infinite, vast and complex Universe has been the subject of human fascination and scientific exploration for thousands of years. The wonders of the Universe might seem alien to us and impossible to understand, but away from the telescopes, the labs and the white coats, Professor Brian Cox uses the evidence found in the natural world around us to explain its simple truths.The same laws of light, gravity, time, matter and energy that govern us here on Earth are the same as those applied in the Universe. Using his expert knowledge and his infectious enthusiasm, Professor Cox shows us that if we can understand the impact of these governing laws on Earth it will bring us a step closer to an understanding of our Universe.
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For Mum, Dad and Sandra – none of this would have been possible without you
Brian Cox
For my dad, Geof Cohen (1943–2007)
Andrew Cohen
Wonders of the Universe
Professor Brian Cox & Andrew Cohen
Copyright
HarperCollins Publishers
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WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Text © Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 9780007413379
Version 2017-02-03
Contents
Copyright
Introduction
The Universe
Chapter 1
Messengers
Young’s double-slit experiment
Messengers from across the ocean of space
All the colours of the rainbow
Chapter 2
Stardust
Timeline of the Universe: The Big Bang to the present
The most powerful explosion on Earth
From Big Bang to Sunshine: The First Stars
Supernova: life cycle of a star
Chapter 3
Falling
Galactic cannibals
Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
Chapter 4
Destiny
The life cycle of the Universe
Searchable Terms
Picture credits
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Credits
INTRODUCTION
THE UNIVERSE
At 13.7 billion years old, 45 billion light years across and filled with 100 billion galaxies – each containing hundreds of billions of stars – the Universe as revealed by modern science is humbling in scale and dazzling in beauty. But, paradoxically, as our knowledge of the Universe has expanded, so the division between us and the cosmos has melted away. The Universe may turn out to be infinite in extent and full of alien worlds beyond imagination, but current scientific thinking suggests that we need it all in order to exist. Without the stars, there would be no ingredients to build us; without the Universe’s great age, there would be no time for the stars to perform their alchemy. The Universe cannot be old without being vast; there may be no waste or redundancy in this potentially infinite arena if there are to be observers present to gaze upon its wonders.
The story of the Universe is therefore our story; tracing our origins back beyond the dawn of man, beyond the origin of life on Earth, and even beyond the formation of Earth itself; back to events – perhaps inevitable, perhaps chance ones – that occurred less than a billionth of a second after the Universe began.
AN ANCIENT WONDER
On Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 passed into the darkness behind the Moon, and Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders became the first humans in history to lose sight of Earth. When they emerged from the Lunar shadow, they saw a crescent Earth rising against the blackness of space and chose to broadcast a creation story to the people of their home planet. A quarter of a million miles from home, lunar module pilot William Anders began:
‘We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth.
And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
