How It Began: A Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Universe

Impey (How It Ends: From You to the Universe) takes readers on a mesmerizing journey through the “labyrinth” that is our universe, following atoms through generation after generation of stellar cores from the Big Bang onward. Impey’s time travelers are astronomers doing cosmic archeology in which the farther out in the universe one goes, the farther back in time one can see. Impey begins close to home, and closest in time, with the formation of our solar system, displaying both lyricism and wit (“the Moon splashes off the molten Earth. Venus is knocked on its ass such that it rotates opposite to all other planets”). Moving outward in the universe (and back in time toward the Big Bang), Impey discusses how to measure stellar distances and detect planets orbiting other stars. Stretching farther back, Impey explores galactic evolution, relativity, the large-scale structure of the universe, and the Big Bang. Fictional vignettes narrated by a space/time traveler (“The massive galaxy swims into view beneath my feet”) bookend each chapter to personalize the material. Impey vividly illustrates the most complex topics, like string theory and dark energy, bringing a fresh, original voice to a much-told tale, making cosmology pleasurable to all readers. 75 illus. Agent: Anna Ghosh. Scovil Galen Ghosh. (Apr.)