Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos

In this stellar account, science writer Panek (The Trouble with Gravity) details the James Webb Space Telescope’s journey from conception to outer space. He explains how astrophysicist Riccardo Giacconi began planning the Webb as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope as early as five years before Hubble’s 1990 launch, as well as how NASA had to battle Congress for continued funding as the project ran over budget by billions of dollars and delays pushed back the launch date by over a decade. (Webb finally reached space in 2021.) Conveying the amazing ingenuity involved in constructing the telescope, Panek describes how keeping the heat-sensitive infrared telescope near absolute zero (−459.67ºF) required engineers to devise a sunshield composed of five layers, each thinner than one-thirtieth the width of a human hair, that cumulatively provide SPF (“as in sunscreen lotions”) one million. Panek captures tense scenes in mission control as engineers dealt with such challenges as faulty sunshield mechanisms and collisions with micrometeoroids, and he offers a wondrous overview of Webb’s major breakthroughs, noting, for instance, that its discovery of water in the asteroid belt has forced astronomers to consider that the habitable zone for life might be larger than previously thought. Brimming with the excitement of scientific discovery, this soars. Agent: David Granger, Aevitas Creative Management. (Oct.)