Chasing Hubble's Shadows: The Search for Galaxies at the Edge of Time

Kanipe, Jeff

ISBN 10: 0809034069 / ISBN 13: 9780809034062

Published by Hill and Wang, 2006

About this Item

Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back.

Seller Inventory # 0809034069

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Chasing Hubble's Shadows: The Search for Galaxies at the Edge of Time
• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809034069
• ISBN 13: 9780809034062
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Astronomers are peering farther out in space—and back in time—than ever before

 

Chasing Hubble’s Shadows is an account of the continuing efforts of astronomers to probe the outermost limits of the observable universe. The book derives its title from something the great American astronomer Edwin Hubble once wrote: “Eventually, we reach the dim boundary—the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.”

The quest for Hubble’s “shadows”—those unimaginably distant, wispy traces of stars and galaxies that formed within the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang—takes us back, in effect, to the beginning of time as we are able to perceive it, when the first discrete stellar objects appeared out of what has lately come to be known as the “cosmic dark age.” The information that is being gleaned from these dim sources—chiefly with the aid of Hubble’s namesake, the Hubble Space Telescope—promises to yield clues to many cosmic puzzles, including the nature of the mysterious “dark energy” that is now believed to pervade all of space.

About the Author

Jeff Kanipe is an independent science journalist, specializing in astronomy, cosmology, and planetary science. His most recent book is Chasing Hubble's Shadows.