Description

In this approachable and fascinating biography of the galaxy an astrophysicist and folklorist details everything humans have discoveredfrom the Milky Ways formation to its eventual death and what else there is to learn about the universe we call home

After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth of watching one hundred billion humans go about their daytoday lives of feeling unbelievably lonely and of hearing its own story told by others The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it

It all began some thirteen billion years ago when clouds of gas scattered through the universes primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other They succumbed to their gravitational attraction and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born Since then the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends as humans mythologized its name and purpose and as galactic archaeologists have worked to determine its true age rude The Milky Way has absorbed supermassive an actual technical term black holes made enemies of a few galactic neighbors and mourned the deaths of countless stars Our home galaxy has even fallen in love

After all this time the Milky Way finally feels that its amassed enough experience for the juicy tellall weve all been waiting for Its fascinating autobiography recounts the history and future of the universe in accessible but scientific detail presenting a summary of human astronomical knowledge thus far that is unquestionably out of this world

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND SCIENCENET
NAMED A BEST AUDIOBOOK OF 2022 BY BOOKPAGE