Putting the stars within reach
When you look at the night sky, you see stars, a few planets, and perhaps even the Milky Way’s spangled belt stretched across the middle. Farther off, visible only through telescopes: distant galaxies and star-birthing nebulae, planets circling other suns, exploding supernova that create the very elements in our bodies. All these marvels and more are out there, and Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke want to tell you about them. The two, communications specialists for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a space telescope based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, have completed what they describe as a travel guide to the universe, a place of wonder that you shouldn’t need a Ph.D. to understand. After all, they say, the cosmos belongs to us all. “Nobody owns the universe, we all look up at the night sky,” Arcand said. Written in accessible language, with pop culture references and compelling images, the book aims for...