Alchemy of the Heavens - Softcover

The Milky Way galaxy--home of the earth, sun, and countless other stars--has long been an object of human fascination. To Australia's aborigines the Milky Way was the smoke from a heavenly campfire, while Native American warriors considered it the road to their final resting place. More recently, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, astronomers brought their telescopes to bear on the Milky Way, hoping to discern its shape and map the stars that filled its bounds. Yet as astronomer Ken Croswell points out in The Alchemy of the Heavens, it's been within the last forty years that scientists have made the most stunning discoveries about the galaxy we call home. With a strong grasp of the science and a remarkable ability to make the most difficult concepts clear, Croswell skillfully leads the reader through a detailed survey of current thinking on the Milky Way. He reveals, for example, that the Milky Way formed as many earlier galaxies collapsed and smashed together; that many of the elements in the galaxy--including the iron and carbon that course through our bodies--were born in exploding supernovae; that in all likelihood there is a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy, with a million times more mass than the sun; and that the Milky Way's oldest stars preserve the elements created in the big bang, thereby serving as "fossils" of the universe's earliest day., Along the way Croswell also introduces us to the brilliant astronomers who made some of these discoveries, and recounts the fierce debates that have driven forward our understanding of the galaxy. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we see how knowledge about the galaxy in particular can give us tremendous insight into the origins of the universe as a whole.

chemy Of The Heavens offers an exciting and accessible survey of what we know about our galaxy.  The home of the earth, the sun, and countless other stars, the Milky Way has long been an object of human fascintation, but it's been in the last forty years that astromoners and astrophysicists have made the most startling discoveries about our galaxy.  Author Ken Croswell reveals that the Milky Way formed as many earlier galaxies collopsed and smashed together; that may of the elements in the galaxy--including the iron and carbon that course through our bodies--were born in exploding supernovae; that in all likelihood there is a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy, with a million times more mass than the sun, and that the Milky Way's oldest stars preserve the elements created in the big bang, thereby serving as "fossils" of the universe's earliest days. A captivating journey through the modern astronomy of the Milky Way, Croswell shows us how a deeper under