Compact Cosmos

Lost in space Muddling your quasars and your superclusters Wondering how everything got where it is Where its all going to Could the physicists really have got it all wrong Again Is our galaxy just a muscle cell in the leg of a large beetle You are holding this planets only nonglossy pocket recycled guide to the universe. Packed with fascinating facts and useful diagrams, space cat Matt Tweed takes you on a trip through time and space. Youll never look at the night sky in quite the same way again.

• The visible universe, from the Earths core to the horizon, 14 billion lightyears away.
• 100 recycled papers throughout. All rights reserved.For permission to reproduce any part of this boo
• CONTENTS Introduction 1 Great Walls and Voids 2 Deep Space 4 Superclusters 6 Galaxy Types 8 Active G
• 1 INTRODUCTION As we gaze out into the vastness of space,or look within to the subatomic worlds of m
• 2 3 GREATWALLSANDVOIDS seriously largescale structures Our journey begins at the edge of the observa
• 5 4 DEEPSPACE twixt starbursts and galaxies Surprisingly,the vacuum of space,emptier by far than the
• 6 SUPERCLUSTERS galactic gatherings The great walls, filaments, and sheets are themselves chains of
• 9 8 GALAXYTYPES whorls and wisps Roughly threequarters of visible galaxies are,like our own,spirals,
• 11 10 ACTIVEGALAXIES and quasar questions With ingenious devices scanning the heavens in spectrums b
• 13 12 BLACKHOLES through the event horizon With bizarre physics and gravitational fields so high tha
• 15 14 Approaching from a distance, our own galaxy appears as a starry whirlpool. We first encounter
• 16 17 The stellar inhabitants of galaxies like ours are divided into two camps,old population II and
• 19 18 From humble cold clouds of interstellar gas,slowly coalescing under gravity into protostars,st
• 21 20 NEBULAEANDSUPERNOVAE stellar birth and death The beginning and end of a stars life offer some
• 22 NEUTRONSANDNOVAE lighthouses and candles The dazzling supernova deaths of ample four to eight sol
• 24 AURICOBJECTS to the heliopause and beyond Stretching out some 4.5 trillion miles,halfway to our c
• 27 26 PLANETSANDMOONS forming solar systems According to current theory,some 4.6 billion years ago a
• 28 29 THENEIGHBORHOODSTAR a glimpse of the sun Providing most of lifes energy on this planet, our su
• 31 30 THERADIATIONCOSMOS hidden skies for electronic eyes Our sense of sight recognizes a narrow ban
• 32 33 SHIFTINGSPECTRA expanding space One puzzle facing astronomers has beento findthe composition o
• 34 FORCESANDFIZZICKS known and knot Holding the universe together are four forces. Two, the strongan
• 37 36 BIGBANGORSTEADYSTATE fabricating a universe The big bang theory is our most popular scientific
• 38 ORBITALEVOLUTION and the shape of things to come Ancient stargazers charted the wanderings of sky
• 41 40 COSMICMYSTERIES missing matter and other conundra It is to be expected that a universe as dive
• 43 42 A PLASMAUNIVERSE into the vortex A great deal of the visible universe is in the form of plasma
• 45 44 TIMEANDLIGHTBUBBLES all that we see Our horizon,the limit of the visible, is a bubble expandin
• 46 46 47 47 SPACETIMEGAMES there and back again If we travel really fast,the relativisticeffects bec
• 48 HABITABLEZONES life, the universe, and everything This wonder we call life could well be a rare a
• 51 50 FINETUNINGMULTIVERSES through the wormhole For us,the universe is just right. The anthropic pr
• 53 52 ULTIMATEREALITY the kaleidoscopic playpen With each passing second our view of the universe gr
• 54 NORTHERNSKY SOUTHERNSKY Stars a. Altair, b. Pleiades, c. Deneb, d. Aldebaran, e. Bellatrix, f.
• GALACTICMAPS superclusters, the local supercluster and the local group 56 57
• Planck mass mP 2.17645x108kg Planck temp TP 1.41679x1032 K StephBoltz.const. 5.67040 x108Wm2 K4 Rcp