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The scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe are among the most imaginative and provocative explorers of our time. Like the geographic explorers of earlier centuries, they venture into uncharted spaces, come upon new worlds, expand the knowable, and challenge thinking about the place of humans in all things. Collected here are the most exciting moments of recent astronomical explorations, presented by the award-winning science reporters of The New York Times. Recent leaps in technology have allowed astronomers to peer deeply into the universe and to bring into focus fascinating and unsuspected phenomena. Cosmic Dispatches conveys in thrilling detail the meaning and significance of what scientists have been learning about our universe.
| Introduction: Informed Wonder | 9 | |
| The Big Bang of Dispatches | 19 | |
| 1. | Let There Be Light | 24 |
| New Vistas Open for Earthbound Astronomers | 25 | |
| What Else Lurks Out There? | 32 | |
| The New X-ray View of Galaxies | 37 | |
| Observatory for Twenty-first Century Takes Shape | 41 | |
| Pictures of the Infant Universe | 47 | |
| 2. | Travels in the Solar System | 51 |
| Apollo and the Moon's Violent Birth | 52 | |
| Water on the Moon? | 57 | |
| Venus's Face Offers Hints of Cataclysm | 60 | |
| The Comet's Gift: Hints of How Earth Came to Life | 64 | |
| Magnetic Fields on Distant Moons Hint at Hidden Life | 69 | |
| Fire, Water, and, Maybe, Life in Jupiter's Realm | 72 | |
| 3. | The Once and Future Martians | 77 |
| Clues in Meteorite Seem to Show Signs of Life on Mars Long Ago | 78 | |
| On Mars, Life's Getting Tougher (If Not Impossible) | 82 | |
| Spacecraft to Land on the Planet of Dreams | 85 | |
| The Floods of Mars | 88 | |
| A "Bonus" from Mars | 91 | |
| Highs and Lows of Mars | 94 | |
| 4. | New Worlds | 97 |
| A Nursery of New Planets | 98 | |
| Two Sightings of Planet Orbiting a Sunlike Star | 101 | |
| More Discoveries of Extrasolar Planets | 103 | |
| In a Golden Age of Discovery, Faraway Worlds Beckon | 106 | |
| A Disk of Dust Holds a Clue to Birth of Planets | 116 | |
| Search for New Planets Yields Confusion | 118 | |
| At Long Last, a New Family of Planets | 124 | |
| 5. | The Birth and Death of Stars | 128 |
| Rare Glimpse of a New Star Aborning | 129 | |
| New Look at Apocalypse: Dying Sun Will Boil Seas and Leave Orbiting Cinder | 133 | |
| The Spectacular Shudders of Dying Stars | 138 | |
| 6. | Some Strange and Awesome Things | 142 |
| Space Telescope Confirms Theory of Black Holes | 143 | |
| A Black Hole's Awful Table Manners | 146 | |
| Enormous Plume of Antimatter Alters View of the Milky Way | 150 | |
| Astronomers Detect Explosion Second Only to Big Bang | 153 | |
| Astronomers Confirm the Existence of Failed Stars | 156 | |
| A New Category of Brown Dwarfs | 159 | |
| An Enormous Surge of Stellar Radiation | 161 | |
| In Cosmic Blasts, Clues to Black Holes | 164 | |
| 7. | Mystery of the Missing Mass | 170 |
| Physicists Step Up Exotic Search for the Universe's Missing Mass | 171 | |
| Mass Found in Elusive Neutrino | 177 | |
| Astronomers Glimpse Galaxies Aborning | 182 | |
| The Universe as Telescope | 187 | |
| Galaxies' Vastness Surprises Scientists | 193 | |
| 8. | Cosmology Comes of Age | 198 |
| Sizing Up the Cosmos: An Astronomer's Quest | 200 | |
| Profound Insight on How Time Began | 206 | |
| In the Glow of Cosmic Discovery, a Physicist Ponders God and Fame | 209 | |
| Scientists, Once Starry-Eyed, Get Clearer View of Universe | 213 | |
| 9. | A Young or Old Universe? | 218 |
| Universe's Age Poses New Cosmic Puzzle | 219 | |
| Einstein's Blunder as Fix for New Crisis | 222 | |
| Conflicting Answers for the Age of the Universe | 227 | |
| The Importance of the Number 70 | 232 | |
| A Younger Age, Perhaps? | 235 | |
| 10. | Fate of the Universe | 238 |
| Wary Astronomers Ponder an Accelerating Universe | 239 | |
| In the Light of Dying Stars, Astronomers See Intimations of Cosmic Immortality | 243 | |
| "Missing Energy" of the Universe | 252 | |
| At the Other End of "Big Bang" May Simply Be a Big Sputter | 255 | |
| 11. | Looking and Listening for ET | 259 |
| Widening the Hunt for Alien Life | 260 | |
| In Search of Star Dust and Clues to Life | 264 | |
| Scanning the Heavens for Signs of Life | 268 | |
| 12. | From the Big Bang to a Theory of Everything | 274 |
| A Primordial Form of Matter | 275 | |
| New Findings Help Balance the Cosmological Books | 278 | |
| Sailing a Wheelchair to the End of Time | 285 | |
| Almost in Awe, Physicists Ponder "Ultimate" Theory | 292 | |
| 13. | Cosmic Views from 2001 | 299 |
| New View of a Nursery of Stars | 300 | |
| Two More Planetary Systems | 304 | |
| In Big Bang's Echoes, Clues to the Cosmos | 307 | |
| With Little Evidence, String Theory Gains Influence | 312 | |
| A Test of Einstein's Negative Gravity | 315 | |
| Before the Big Bang, There Was ... What? | 317 | |
| Index | 325 | |
| About the Authors | 343 |
Overview
The scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe are among the most imaginative and provocative explorers of our time. Like the geographic explorers of earlier centuries, they venture into uncharted spaces, come upon new worlds, expand the knowable, and challenge thinking about the place of humans in all things. Collected here are the most exciting moments of recent astronomical explorations, presented by the award-winning science reporters of The New York Times. Recent leaps in technology have ...