Cosmological Enigmas: Pulsars, Quasars, and Other Deep-Space Questions

Science News,  Jan 5, 2008  

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COSMOLOGICAL ENIGMAS: Pulsars, Quasars, and Other Deep-Space Questions

MARK KIDGER

Sometimes the most basic questions expose big gaps in scientific knowledge. Questions as basic as how did the universe start? How will it end? Humans have pondered the night sky since the beginning of civilization, yet many of their questions about it remain. Mark Kidger, an astronomer at the European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid and author of Astronomical Enigmas: Life on Mars, The Star of Bethlehem. and Other Milky Way Mysteries, embraces the great unknown, presenting the cosmos as a living, writhing backdrop against which stars might explode in supernovas or collapse into black holes. So enormous is that universe, writes Kidger, that it can be cruel to scientists who meticulously formulate theories, only to learn that their ideas must be refined or overturned entirely. But this, too, is part of the thrill. After all, a challenge to the Big Bang would mean that something of stunning proportions had been discovered. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2007, 224 p., color photos, hardcover, $30.00.

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