천문학에서 중요한 역할을 하고 있는 첨단의 망원경과 관측기법을 소개하는 책. 현재에도 활발히 활동하고 있는 세계적인 천문학자들과 만나 오늘날 천문학이 거두고 있는 성과와 진행되고 있는 연구, 앞으로 해결해야 할 과제 등 생생한 현장의 목소리를 담았다.
총10개의 장으로 구성되어 있으며 , 지은이가 세계 최대의 망원경이 있는 켁 천문대를 방문하여 그곳에서 진행된 관측 작업을 경험한 내용은 이 책에서 가장 돋보이는 부분이다.관측 작업의 긴박감과 천문학자들의 치열한 탐구심을 생생하게 묘사하고 있는 이 책을 통해 읽는이들은 대형 망원경을 이용한 관측이 실제로 어떻게 이루어지는지를 잘 알 수 있을 것이다.
추천사
제프 캐나이프는 어마어마한 캔버스 위에 커다란 붓으로 우주의 기원을 그리고 있다. 독자들은 이 책에서
우주의 끝을 탐색하는 최첨단의 망원경과 그곳에서 일하는 학자들을 만나고, 우주가 어떻게 만들어지고
진화했는지를 알게 될 것이다. - 로버트 P. 커쉬너(하번드 스미스소니언 천체물리학 센터 교수)
허블 우주망원경이 왜 그토록 천문학자들을 흥분시켰는지, 또 그것이 우주의 수수께끼를 푸는 데 얼마나
강력한 도구인지 알고 싶다면 이 책을 보라. 제프 캐나이프의 생생하고 풍부한 설명이 태초의 시간으로
우리를 안내한다. - 도널드 골드스미스(<오리진, 140억 년의 우주 진화>의 지은이)
저자소개
천문학과 우주론 분야의 전문 작가. 25년 넘게 『애스트로노미Astronomy』와 『스타데이트StarDates』 등의 과학 잡지에서 작가와 편집자로 활동했다.
지은책으로 <별을 보는 이의 일 년>, <천문학 가이드 결정판>, <뒷마당의 천문학>, <아프의 특이 은하 지도>, <허블이 그림자> 등이 있다.
When we look out into space we look back in time. When we have the Hubble Space Telescope working for us we look very deep into space and very far back in time, so far back that some of the galaxies that Hubble can see are as they were billions of years ago when the universe was young, when there were few heavy metals, long before the sun came to life, long before (presumably) the birth of our galaxy.
What was the universe like then and what can we learn about the properties of the universe and about its evolution from the dim light given off by those very distant galaxies?
What science journalist Jeff Kanipe is trying to do in this book is bring the general reader up to date on the latest discoveries and understandings in astronomy and how these discoveries are leading to a better understanding of cosmology. Do galaxies look different as we go back in time? Clearly the very first galaxies consisted of stars containing only hydrogen and helium. How were these stars different from the stars we see around us, from our own sun? And what about the shape and characteristics of the first galaxies? Were they spirals, barred or normal, ellipticals or irregulars? And what role does dark energy and dark matter play in their formation?
Kanipe gives up-to-date answers to these questions, and this is one of the strengths of this readable book. Events in astronomy and cosmology move quickly. Books that are even a few years old will be out of date in certain respects. I am always interested in what is, for example, the latest estimate of the age of the universe. Kanipe gives a age of about 14 billion years, which means that light from the most primordial event comes to us from a distance of about 14 billion light years. Actually it is a little less than this since there was a so called "dark age" that lasted until about 13.66 billion years ago at a red shift of (gulp!) 1000. Kanipe typically uses red shift measurements instead of light years to express both distance and time. For example an object 7.3 light years away has a red shift of 0.9. If we look back a mere 70 million years the red shift is a tiny 0.005.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is on Kanipe's visit to Mauna Kea, Hawaii where the two great Keck telescopes are housed. He makes vivid the experience of being with the astronomers at their camp at 9,000 feet and atop the mountain in the cold, still air at nearly 14,000 feet. Kanipe's story integrates knowledge from telescopes around the world, including that from infrared, radio and other telescopes.
One of the things I like best about the book is that there isn't a lot of repetitive history. Instead, the book is devoted to what is happening now in astronomy. The only difficulty is that there is a lot of information to absorb and some of the ideas are unusual. The terminology also requires some effort to get used to, but Kanipe eschews most jargon and uses almost no mathematics.
There are some nice color prints in the middle of the book, an index and a bibliography.
천문학에서 중요한 역할을 하고 있는 첨단의 망원경과 관측기법을 소개하는 책. 현재에도 활발히 활동하고 있는 세계적인 천문학자들과 만나 오늘날 천문학이 거두고 있는 성과와 진행되고 있는 연구, 앞으로 해결해야 할 과제 등 생생한 현장의 목소리를 담았다.
총10개의 장으로 구성되어 있으며 , 지은이가 세계 최대의 망원경이 있는 켁 천문대를 방문하여 그곳에서 진행된 관측 작업을 경험한 내용은 이 책에서 가장 돋보이는 부분이다.관측 작업의 긴박감과 천문학자들의 치열한 탐구심을 생생하게 묘사하고 있는 이 책을 통해 읽는이들은 대형 망원경을 이용한 관측이 실제로 어떻게 이루어지는지를 잘 알 수 있을 것이다.
추천사
천문학과 우주론 분야의 전문 작가. 25년 넘게 『애스트로노미Astronomy』와 『스타데이트StarDates』 등의 과학 잡지에서 작가와 편집자로 활동했다.
지은책으로 <별을 보는 이의 일 년>, <천문학 가이드 결정판>, <뒷마당의 천문학>, <아프의 특이 은하 지도>, <허블이 그림자> 등이 있다.
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What was the universe like then and what can we learn about the properties of the universe and about its evolution from the dim light given off by those very distant galaxies?
What science journalist Jeff Kanipe is trying to do in this book is bring the general reader up to date on the latest discoveries and understandings in astronomy and how these discoveries are leading to a better understanding of cosmology. Do galaxies look different as we go back in time? Clearly the very first galaxies consisted of stars containing only hydrogen and helium. How were these stars different from the stars we see around us, from our own sun? And what about the shape and characteristics of the first galaxies? Were they spirals, barred or normal, ellipticals or irregulars? And what role does dark energy and dark matter play in their formation?
Kanipe gives up-to-date answers to these questions, and this is one of the strengths of this readable book. Events in astronomy and cosmology move quickly. Books that are even a few years old will be out of date in certain respects. I am always interested in what is, for example, the latest estimate of the age of the universe. Kanipe gives a age of about 14 billion years, which means that light from the most primordial event comes to us from a distance of about 14 billion light years. Actually it is a little less than this since there was a so called "dark age" that lasted until about 13.66 billion years ago at a red shift of (gulp!) 1000. Kanipe typically uses red shift measurements instead of light years to express both distance and time. For example an object 7.3 light years away has a red shift of 0.9. If we look back a mere 70 million years the red shift is a tiny 0.005.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is on Kanipe's visit to Mauna Kea, Hawaii where the two great Keck telescopes are housed. He makes vivid the experience of being with the astronomers at their camp at 9,000 feet and atop the mountain in the cold, still air at nearly 14,000 feet. Kanipe's story integrates knowledge from telescopes around the world, including that from infrared, radio and other telescopes.
One of the things I like best about the book is that there isn't a lot of repetitive history. Instead, the book is devoted to what is happening now in astronomy. The only difficulty is that there is a lot of information to absorb and some of the ideas are unusual. The terminology also requires some effort to get used to, but Kanipe eschews most jargon and uses almost no mathematics.
There are some nice color prints in the middle of the book, an index and a bibliography.