num_pages: 224
description: Exploring the family tree of the cosmos from humans on Earth to stars and galaxies to the first atoms of the Big Bang; with striking color illustrations.Looking up at the night sky we see not only stars twinkling in their constellations and planets caught mid-orbit but our cosmic family tree. We are here on Earth because billions of years ago the Big Bang created the atoms that over unimaginable periods of time formed the stars and galaxies. Generations of stars that burned exploded or collided long before our planet was formed created the carbon of our bodies and the iron in our blood. In Astroquizzical  astrophysicist Jillian Scudder takes readers on a curiosity-driven journey through outer space traveling back in time from Earth to the stars and galaxies to the cosmic explosions of the Big Bang. Scudder proceedsastroquizzicallyquestion by question answering and explaining such queries as What color is the universe? Do all planets spin the same way? and How many galaxies are there? Along the way she proposes a series of thought experiments including What would happen if we split the sun in half? and What happens to time dilation at the speed of light? She covers meteors the aurora and the Moon (Earths cosmic companion); Jupiters stripes and Plutos mountains; red dwarfs brown dwarfs and white dwarfs; the deaths of stars and the abundance of galaxies; and much more. Striking color images illustrate astrophysical marvels.
language: English
title: Astroquizzical: Solving the Cosmic Puzzles of Our Planets, Stars, and Galaxies: The Illustrated Edition
publisher: The MIT Press