Exploring the family tree of the cosmos, from humans on Earth to stars
and galaxies to the first atoms of the Big Bang; with striking color
illustrations.
Looking up at the night sky, we see not only stars twinkling in their
constellations and planets caught mid-orbit but our cosmic family tree.
We are here on Earth because billions of years ago the Big Bang created
the atoms that, over unimaginable periods of time, formed the stars and
galaxies. Generations of stars that burned, exploded, or collided long
before our planet was formed created the carbon of our bodies and the
iron in our blood. In Astroquizzical, astrophysicist Jillian Scudder
takes readers on a curiosity-driven journey through outer space,
traveling back in time from Earth to the stars and galaxies to the
cosmic explosions of the Big Bang.
Scudder proceeds--astroquizzically--question by question, answering and
explaining such queries as "What color is the universe?," "Do all
planets spin the same way?," and "How many galaxies are there?" Along
the way, she proposes a series of thought experiments, including "What
would happen if we split the sun in half?" and "What happens to time
dilation at the speed of light?" She covers meteors, the aurora, and the
Moon (Earth's cosmic companion); Jupiter's stripes and Pluto's
mountains; red dwarfs, brown dwarfs, and white dwarfs; the deaths of
stars and the abundance of galaxies; and much more. Striking color
images illustrate astrophysical marvels.
