Picturing the Cosmos elucidates the complex relationship between visual propaganda and censorship in the Soviet Union in the Cold War period, focusing on the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing from a comprehensive corpus of rarely seen photographs and other visual phenomena narrating the Soviet Union's 1957 victory in the 'Race for Space', the author illustrates the media's role in cementing the way for Communism whilst retaining top-secret information. Each photo is examined as a deliberate, functioning part of a specific political, ideological and historical situation that helped to anchor the otherwise abstract political and intellectual concepts of the future and modernization.
The vivid, dramatic images of distant stars and galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope have come to define how we visualize the cosmos. In their immediacy and vibrancy, photographs from the Hubble show what future generations of space travelers might see should they venture beyond our solar system. But their brilliant hues and precise details are not simply products of the telescope's unprecedented orbital location and technologically advanced optical system. Rather, they result from a series of deliberate decisions made by the astronomers who convert raw data from the Hubble into spectacular pictures by assigning colors, adjusting contrast, and actively composing the images, balancing the desire for an aesthetically pleasing representation with the need for a scientifically valid one. In Picturing the Cosmos, Elizabeth A. Kessler examines the Hubble's deep space images, highlighting the remarkable resemblance they bear to nineteenth-century paintings and photographs of the American West and their invocation of the visual language of the sublime. Drawing on art history and the history of science, as well as interviews with astronomers who work on the Hubble Heritage Project, Kessler traces the ways that the sublime, with its inherent tension between reason and imagination, not only forms the appearance of the images, but also operates on other levels. The sublime informs the dual expression--numeric and pictorial--of digital data and underpins the relevance of the frontier for a new era of exploration performed by our instruments rather than our bodies. Through their engagement with the sublime the Hubble images are a complex act of translation that encourages an experience of the universe as simultaneously beyond humanity's grasp and within the reach of our knowledge. Strikingly illustrated with full-color images, this book reveals the scientific, aesthetic, and cultural significance of the Hubble pictures, offering a nuanced understanding of how they shape our ideas--and dreams--about the cosmos and our places within it.
Visual history of the discovery of the universe, told through illustrations, maps, diagrams, speculative works of representation, and data visualizations.
In the spirit of National Geographic’s top-selling Orbit, this large-format, full-color volume stands alone in revealing more than 200 of the most spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope during its lifetime, to the very eve of the 2008 final shuttle mission to the telescope. Written by two of the world’s foremost authorities on space history, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time illuminates the solar system’s workings, the expansion of the universe, the birth and death of stars, the formation of planetary nebulae, the dynamics of galaxies, and the mysterious force known as "dark energy." The potential impact of this book cannot be overstressed: The 2008 servicing mission to install new high-powered scientific instruments is especially high profile because the cancellation of the previous mission, in 2004, caused widespread controversy. The authors reveal the inside story of Hubble’s beginnings, its controversial early days, the drama of its first servicing missions, and the creation of the dynamic images that reach into the deepest regions of visible space, close to the time when the universe began. A wealth of astonishing images leads us to the very edge of known space, setting the stage for the new James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2013. Find the stunning panoramic of Carina Nebula, detailing star birth as never before; a jet from a black hole in one galaxy striking a neighboring galaxy; a jewel-like collection of galaxies from the early years of the universe; and a giant galaxy cannibalizing a smaller galaxy. Timed for the 2008 shuttle launch and coinciding with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first telescope, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time accompanies a high-profile exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum and will be featured on the popular NASM website.
This spectacularly illustrated book is a comprehensive exploration of astronomy through the eyes of the world's observatories and spacecraft missions. Featuring the latest and most stunning images, it provides a magnificent picture of the beauty of the cosmos. The accompanying text is an accessible guide to the science behind the wonders and includes clear explanations of all the major themes in astronomy. An essential guide to understanding and appreciating the Universe, Visions of the Cosmos builds on the success of the authors' previous book, Hubble Vision, which became an international best-seller and won world-wide acclaim. Carolyn Collins Petersen is a science journalist and creator of educational materials for astronomy. She is the former Editor of Books & Products at Sky Publishing Corporation, and served as Editor of SkyWatch and Associate Editor of Sky & Telescope magazines. Petersen is the lead author of the book Hubble Vision, first published in 1995 by Cambridge University Press, and co-written with Dr. John C. Brandt. She is also co-editor (with J. Kelly Beatty and Andrew Chaikin) of The New Solar System, fourth edition, co-published by Sky Publishing Corporation and Cambridge University Press. John C. Brandt has held positions as a research scientist, teacher, and administrator, and is currently an adjunct professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Mexico. He served for 20 years as Chief of a major NASA scientific laboratory and was the Principal Inverstigator for the Goddard High Resolution Spectograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. John received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1978 and 1992, and has had a minor planet formally named after him (3503 Brandt) for his fundamental contributions to understanding of solar system astrophysics.
An astonishingly moving middle-grade debut about a space-obsessed boy's quest for family and home. All eleven-year old Alex wants is to launch his iPod into space. With a series of audio recordings, he will show other lifeforms out in the cosmos what life on Earth, his Earth, is really like. But for a boy with a long-dead dad, a troubled mum, and a mostly-not-around brother, Alex struggles with the big questions. Where do I come from? Who's out there? And, above all, How can I be brave? Determined to find the answers, Alex sets out on a remarkable road trip that will turn his whole world upside down . . . For fans of Wonder and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Jack Cheng's debut is full of joy, optimism, determination, and unbelievable heart. To read the first page is to fall in love with Alex and his view of our big, beautiful, complicated world. To read the last is to know he and his story will stay with you a long, long time.
Presents an overview of the Hubble Space Telescope, describing its initial launch in 1990 and impact on our understanding of the universe, along with some of its latest images of galaxies, stars, planets, and nebulas.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes “an astonishing ride” through the universe (The New York Times) that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.
The instant New York Times bestseller about humanity's place in the universe—and how we understand it. “Vivid...impressive....Splendidly informative.”—The New York Times “Succeeds spectacularly.”—Science “A tour de force.”—Salon Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions: Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Do human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview? In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level—and then how each connects to the other. Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique. Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning. The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.
