The Unknown Universe: A New Exploration of Time, Space, and Modern Cosmology

Clark (The Sun Kings), an astronomy journalist and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, celebrates and challenges the current state of modern astrophysics with this wide-ranging and accessible look at the field’s most cutting edge research. When the European Space Agency published its groundbreaking 2013 image of the universe as it was 13.7 billion years ago, astronomers cheered. Then they started to argue. The map of cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang shows a universe that consists of nothing but a “gigantic cloud of atoms.” Somehow that cloud became nonhomogeneous bubbles and filaments of clusters of galaxies, stars, and planets, including a “Great Wall” of superclusters. Observations on the rotation of galaxies and the speed of the universe’s expansion have led scientists to postulate the existence of dark matter that can’t be seen and dark energy that can’t be found, and questioning the current understanding of gravity itself. Stuart explores the arguments, the rivalries, and the triumphs of astrophysics with lively writing and an enviable knack for whittling the most complex topics into clear, crisp ideas. This enthusiastic book will entertain as well as educate pop science readers. Agent: Claire Kennedy, Head of Zeus. (July)