City of Stirling Library Services

First light, switching on stars at the dawn of time, Emma Chapman

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-291) and index

illustrationsplatesportraits

index present

non fiction

First light

bibliography

Emma Chapman

switching on stars at the dawn of time

First Light opens a window into a previously dark and secret time in our Universe's history -- the time when the first stars were born. Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe's history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There's a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe. This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe's history, known to astrophysicists as the 'Epoch of Reionisation', represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today

adult