Author: Gabriele Ghisellini

This is a guide to the exploration of the heavens and to the discoveries made thanks to powerful new telescopes, which have revealed a universe very different from the one we were used to.

For thousands of years, astronomy relied on the human eye to observe the sky. But the stars do not just emit visible light: they also produce and radiate other types of light, from radio waves to gamma rays.

Here, the author shows us a much more energetic, violent, variable and unpredictable cosmos, where neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a 10-km-radius sphere. He explains how infrared rays can be used to observe the birth of a star and the formation of a planet.

The history of light – a crucial part of the universe’s life – goes hand in hand with the great discoveries of modern physics, from the first attempts to measure the speed of light itself to relativity and quantum mechanics.

The book explains the nature of light: its behaviour both as a wave and as a particle; Newton's spectrum of colours; Maxwell's electromagnetic waves; how gravity curves space and thus the trajectories of light rays; the issue of general relativity. The last chapter details the various ways in which light is produced, in a straightforward, reader-friendly manner.

Through anecdotes, curiosities and examples, the book explores where and how light is produced and goes as far as Hawking radiation, lasers and antimatter.

Here is a popular and enthralling journey to discover the fascinating mysteries of astronomy.

How was the universe born? How big is it? How much time has passed since the Big Bang? What’s the fate of our Solar System? Take part in this journey from the infinitely small to the infinitely big to answer these and many other questions: from the birth of a star to its death; from the latest discoveries on gravity to the great mysteries of black holes; from dark matter to antimatter.