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| The Violent Universe is an over-sized coffee table book, featuring gorgeous full-color photographs of astronomical objects - individual stars, stellar nurseries, black holes, nebulas and galaxies.
But it's much more than that. It's an excellent introduction to the science of radio astronomy and how it can give all of us an insight into the beauties and enigmas of the universe.
Weaver's text is clear and efficiently presented (in a chronological manner, which I always appreciate), and understandable to the average person. She presents difficult concepts - the electromagnetic spectrum and what it reveals - in simple, easy-to-understand prose. |
Contents
Foreword
Preface
1. The Story So Far
2. What Our Eyes Can't See
3. From Cradle to Grave
4. No Place Like Home
5. Fires in the Sky
6. There Monsters Lie
7. Cosmic Pools of Energy
8. The Ancient Past
9. The Journey Continues
Index |
All of the photographs in this book are in full color. How can this be when x-rays are invisible?
"X-ray telescopes," writes Weaver, "have brought us many beautiful astronomical images. But since we can't see x-ray light, these images are not printed in true colors. This means that we have to decide what color means when displaying an x-ray image.
X-ray light doesn't possess specific colors, but each photon of x-ray light has a specific energy, so it is possible to code the x-rays with different colors corresponding to their energy.
Every astronomical source also produces different numbers of photons from different locations, and so we can use color to express the relative intensity of x-ray light across an image rather than expressing the energy of the x-rays."
The photographs presented in this book are thus of several kinds: Visible images - photos of objects that are visible to the eye, taken from the Hubble Telescope, to name only one source, as well as the distinctive radio, infrared and x-ray photos: intensity-colored, energy-colored, and a combination thereof. Weaver presents the visible and the "invisible" side by side, so that her readers can see the incredible knowledge and beauty that the "invisible" reveals.
The Chapters in More Detail:
1. The Story So Far
A brief history of astronomy and radio astronomy.
2. What Our Eyes Can't See
An explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum - how the various 'rays' were discovered (radio waves, x-rays, gamma rays, microwaves)and how they can be used to 'see' the invisible.
3. From Cradle to Grave
Nebula - the birth and death of stars.
4. No Place Like Home
Galaxies and black holes.
5. Fires in the Sky
The birth and death of stars in other galaxies (besides our own 'Milky Way.') Colliding galaxies and starbursts.
6. There Monsters Lie
"Behind their vast and whirling veils of stars and gas, some galaxies contain incredible sources of energy buried deep within their cores. These mighty "central engines" are known to astronomers as active galactic nuclei, or AGNs, and the galaxies that harbor them are the kings of galactic nobility."
7. Cosmic Pools of Energy
Clusters of galaxies, and the effects of grravity on them.
8. The Ancient Past
How we can learn about the birth of the universe by studying the furthest stars.
9. The Journey Continues
Plans for more powerful radio telescopes to be placed in space on orbiting observatories: The Astro E-2 scheduled to be launched from Japan [renamed Suzaku, it was successfully launched in July 2005. Suzaku External site], XEUS, which is being designed by the European Space Agency, and Constellation-X.
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