Astronomy: Scientific Information About the Universe and the Scientific Theories of the Evolution of the Universe

Product Description

Most of the articles gathered in this anthology were selected to capture the revolution that has shaken cosmology and our understanding of the universe in the last few years. The pivotal year for this revolution was 1998. Up to that time, most astronomers were confident that the universe had been expanding for 10 billion to 20 billion years - since its birth after the big bang. The expansion started with inflation: a poorly understood growth spurt - over an amazingly short period of time - of an incredibly hot, much smaller universe. Some time later, the energy and matter in the universe coalesced into stars and galaxies. The afterglow of the big bang cooled along wiht the expanding universe and now fills the sky with a nearly uniform cosmic microwave background.