First Light: The Search for the Edge of the UniverseSeven years before Richard Preston wrote about horrifying viruses in The Hot Zone, he turned his attention to the cosmos. In First Light, he demonstrates his gift for creating an exciting and absorbing narrative around a complex scientific subject--in this case the efforts by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains of California to peer to the farthest edges of space through the Hale Telescope, attempting to solve the riddle of the creation of the universe. Richard Preston's name became a household word with The Hot Zone, which sold nearly 800,000 copies in hardcover, was on The New York Times's bestseller list for 42 weeks, and was the subject of countless magazine and newspaper articles. Preston has become a sought-after commentator on popular science subjects. For this hardcover reprint of what has been called "the best popular account of astronomy in action," (Kirkus Reviews) he has revised the text and written a new introduction. |
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Common terms and phrases
4-shooter accretion disk asked asteroids astronomers Baade began Big Eye billion black hole bright Byron Hill called Caltech camera Carolyn Carolyn Shoemaker Cassandra catwalk chip color comet crater dark data room dome Don Schneider dust earth earth-crossing electrons engineers film galaxies Gene Shoemaker glass going Gunn's hair Hale Telescope happened hundred images inside Jesse Greenstein Jim Gunn Jim Senior Juan Carrasco Jupiter kludge light light-years looked Maarten Schmidt Main Belt miles Milky Minkowski minor planets mirror moon motor moved named Nenow never night assistant object Observatory Oort cloud opticians orbit Palomar Mountain Pfooey photograph photons polishing prime focus pulled quasars radio redshift redshift cutoff Schmidt telescope screen sensor solar system Space Telescope spectrum star superclusters switch tape telescope's Thicksten things took Trojan planets tube turned universe walked Walter Baade watching Westphal Wiffpick wire Zwicky
References to this book
The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery Edward G. Ruestow Limited preview - 1996 |
Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time Marcia Bartusiak No preview available - 2000 |