The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (Princeton Science Library)
Astronomer Kirshner, the Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University and head of the optical and infrared division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is part of a team studying supernovae that, by their apparent brightness, make it possible to measure distances in the universe. "The observations of distant supernovae show that we live in a universe that is not static as Einstein thought, and not just expanding as Hubble showed, but accelerating! We attribute this increase in expansion over time to a dark energy with an outward-pushing pressure.... Dark energy makes up the missing component of mass-energy that theorists have sought, reconciles the ages of objects with the present expansion rate of the universe, and complements new measurements of the lingering glow of the Big Bang itself to make a neat and surprising picture for the contents of the universe." It is an extravagant universe: "It has neutrinos as hot dark matter; something unknown as cold dark matter; inflation in the first 10-35 second after the Big Bang; and acceleration by dark energy now." Kirshner makes the story sing and the concepts of astronomy vivid.Editors of Scientific American